Beate Pongratz-Leisten

Religion and Ideology in Assyria

Studies in Ancient
Near Eastern Records

General Editor:
Gonzalo Rubio

Editors:
Nicole Brisch, Petra Goedegebuure, Markus Hilgert,
Amélie Kuhrt, Peter Machinist, Piotr Michalowski,
Cécile Michel, Beate Pongratz-Leisten, D. T. Potts,
Kim Ryholt

Volume 6
Beate Pongratz-Leisten
Religion and Ideology
in Assyria

DE GRUYTER
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To my students
Acknowledgments
This book is the product of several phases of development. It began as part of a
larger project on Ancient Near Eastern religions during the academic year 2003‒
04, which I spent at Harvard University with a grant from the Center for the
Study of World Religions. My colleagues at the time, Irene Winter, Peter Machin-
ist, Piotr Steinkeller, and Paul-Alain Beaulieu together with their students gra-
ciously met with me several times to discuss various aspects of my research. In
the years that followed, a draft manuscript emerged and received its most valua-
ble comments from Zainab Bahrani, Benjamin Foster, Bruce Lincoln, and Peter
Brown. During the academic year 2007‒08, a grant from the National Endow-
ment of the Humanities enabled me to spend a year at the Institute for Advanced
Study, where I enjoyed the privilege of discussing my research in the seminars
held by Caroline Bynum and Heinrich von Staden. At this time I narrowed my
research focus to emphasize aspects of kingship and ideology in Mesopotamia.
In 2009, with my appointment at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
at New York University, I worked intensely with my colleagues to build the insti-
tution, formulate its vision, and design a graduate program and my research
took another turn. I placed the historical development of ideology in Assyria –
and its intercultural exchange with its neighbors – at center stage, working to
delineate it from its beginnings through the Sargonid period in the first millenni-
um BCE. Concomitant with the new research direction, I came to realize the
need to clearly elucidate the fascinating interdependency between religion and
ideology, which so often have been treated independently rather than as inextri-
cably intertwined in the context of the ancient world.
Thanks are due to a number of scholars who kindly offered their comments
and questions, and who invited me to present my work for discussion and
analysis. Early drafts of several sections were read by Giorgio Buccellati, Mari-
lyn Kelly-Buccellati, and Simo Parpola, and I am most grateful for their insight-
ful comments. Productive and inspiring workshops include a 2007 meeting on
royal ideology at the University of Pennsylvania, organized by Jane A. Hill,
Philip Jones, and Antonio J. Morales; a 2010 meeting in Paris on Middle Assyri-
an developments in the Hābūr area in 2010 in Paris, organized by Nele Ziegler;
a 2011 meeting on divination at the SBL conference in San Francisco, organized
by Alan Lenzi and Jonathan Stoekl; a 2013 meeting on intertextuality, orga-
nized by Johannes Bach and his peer students at Topoi Berlin; and a 2014
meeting on Transmission, Translation, and Reception, organized by Yoram Co-
hen and Amir Gilan at Tel Aviv University. These workshops provided the op-
portunity to discuss aspects of ideology, the relationship between historiogra-
phy and divination, a topic that I further had the opportunity to intensely dis-
viii Acknowledgments

cuss with Jean-Jacques Glassner, the intertextuality of what has been

distinguished as literary texts and historiographic texts, and the transmission
of cultural ideas and cultic practices. Most of my contributions to these work-
shops have been published in the respective volumes of their proceedings. I
decided to rework them into a coherent narrative of this book. My work on
historiography also benefited from in-depth discussions with the students in
my seminar on Assyrian historiography in spring 2013, and with Peter Machin-
ist, Piotr Michalowski, Jean-Jaques-Glassner, and Nele Ziegler during the con-
cluding workshop, Ancient and Modern Perspectives on Historiography, which
I organized at ISAW in April 2013.
I am further indebted to my colleague Lorenzo d’Alfonso as well as to all
those who attended the Ancient Near Eastern Table at ISAW, where I presented
my ideas on religion and ideology in two intense sessions of discussion. Har-
mut Kühne most generously shared with me his work and thoughts on the
development of the Assyrian state on the basis of his long-standing experience
with the archaeology of the Hābūr region. I am very grateful to Andrew George
who provided me with his insights on the texts from Tigunānum and shared
Lambert’s notes on the ritual texts from that site with me. A thorough study of
these texts would have delayed the publication of the book and I decided to
leave that for a later project. Further thanks are due to Kim Benzel, Dominique
Charpin, Yoram Cohen, Jerrold S. Cooper, Betina Faist, Amir Gilan, Jamie No-
votny, Francesca Rochberg, Wolfgang Röllig, Daisuke Shibata, Maurizio Viano,
and Shigeo Yamada who shared unpublished manuscripts and thoughts with
me along the way.
I am immensely indebted to my colleagues Daniel Fleming, Marc Smith,
and Gonzalo Rubio who most graciously dedicated their time and energy to
reading the advanced drafts of the manuscript. Their rigorous and sometimes
challenging comments were a great source of inspiration, and I would like to
take the opportunity to thank them for their kind friendship over all these
years, which is so rare to find in academia. Words cannot express my gratitude
to Karen Sonik who not only edited a version of the entire manuscript but also
was a most critical and supportive reader. Jonathan Valk edited once more the
very final version and showed great patience with my continuous later inser-
tions. Nancy Highcock most effectively helped me with the bibliography and
the figures. Last but not least I want to thank ISAW for graciously supporting
the workshops I organized over the last years.
I dedicate this book to my students at ISAW. Their curiosity and enthusiasm
provided a continuous resource of energy and inspiration as I worked to com-
plete this book.

Princeton, July 2014

Contents
Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations xv

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Setting the Stage 1
1.2 Why This Book? 10
1.3 Fascination with the Assyrian Kings 17
1.4 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They
Intertwine 21
1.5 The Mobility of the Scholars and their Role at the Royal
Courts 30
1.6 The Scholars’ Literary Production at the Assyrian Court 36
1.7 Approaches and Method 38

2 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

and the Rise of Assyrian Cultural Discourse 42
2.1 Preliminary Remarks: Studying Aššur’s Early Beginnings 42
2.2 North-South Interaction and the Syro-Anatolian Impact on
Assyrian Culture 47
2.3 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the Cuneiform
Tradition 52
2.4 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North and its
Interaction with the Hurrian Cultural Horizon 61
2.5 Excursus: The Cultural Impact of Treaties 74
2.6 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic
Kingship 79
2.7 The Transformation of Tradition During the Ur III Period 89

3 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition 93

3.1 Where to Begin? 93
3.2 The Early History of the City of Aššur 96
3.3 Socio-Political Organization: North versus South 103
3.4 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 105
3.5 Šamšī-Adad I and Daduša 116
3.5.1 Joining Forces to Conquer the Eastern Tigridian Region: The
Impact of Politics on the Historiographic Discourse of Daduša
and Šamšī-Adad 116
x Contents

3.5.2 Daduša and his Scholars’ Library as Predecessor to the Exorcist’s

Library in Aššur 130
3.5.3 Šamšī-Adad I’s Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia: Political
Pragmatism and Cultural Discourse 133
3.5.3.1 The Eponym System and the Mari Chronicles 133
3.5.3.2 The Assyrian King List 135
3.5.3.3 Šamšī-Adad I’s Rebuilding of the Aššur Temple and Aššur’s
Enlilship 141
3.5.3.4 The Kings of Akkad as Models for Ambitious Rulers 142

4 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire 145

4.1 What is ‘Universal Control’? 145
4.2 Controlling the Land between the Rivers: The Sargon Legend and
the First Macro-Regional State under Šamšī-Adad I 152
4.3 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle
Assyrian Period 157
4.4 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet 167
4.5 The Literarization of the Empire 174
4.6 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 181
4.7 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World 191

5 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship 198

5.1 The Title ‘King’ and its Implications 198
5.2 Political and Religious Functions Intertwined: The Title
šangû 202
5.3 Anchoring the Institution of Kingship in the Mythical
Past 205
5.4 The Assyrian Notion of the King’s Shepherdship (rēʾûtu) and
Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn 210
5.5 Conclusion: The Political and Religious Dimensions of Assyrian
Kingship 217

6 Administrator, Hunter, Warrior: The Mythical Foundations of the

King’s Role as Ninurta 219
6.1 The Typification of Royal Roles: Homogeneity in Action between
the Gods and the King 219
6.2 The “Divinity” of the King 225
6.3 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 228
6.3.1 Ninurta as Enlil’s Administrator: A Model for Assyrian
Kingship 228
 Contents xi

6.3.2 Ninurta as Warrior: The Pervasive Rhetoric of the Combat Myth in

Image and Text 232
6.4 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to
Ideological Discourse 244
6.5 The Interface between Myth and Royal Inscriptions 258
6.6 War, Abundance, and the Astralization of the Warrior
God 262

7 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge 271

7.1 Experience, Expertise and Knowledge: The King’s Place in the
Cosmic Scheme 271
7.2 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise 278
7.3 The chaîne opératoire of Royal Performance and the Assyrian
Enthusiasm for Detail 286

8 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary 290

8.1 The Tropological Discourse of Royal Inscriptions 290
8.2 The Dual-Focus Pattern of the Assyrian Epic 296
8.3 The Fictive and the Imaginary: Myth versus Legend and Royal
Inscriptions 300
8.4 The Dynamics of Literary Textual Production and Assyrian Royal
Discourse 305
8.5 Making an Argument: The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s
Account of the Battle of Halule 306

9 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient

Historiography 322
9.1 Introduction 322
9.2 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine
Letters 323
9.3 The Goddess Ištar and the King 334
9.4 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice and his Reformulation of
the Assyrian Rules of Succession 341
9.4.1 Esarhaddon’s Rise to Power 341
9.4.2 Esarhaddon’s Oracle Collections 345
9.4.3 Rewriting History through the Voices of Ištar and Aššur 348
9.5 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 360
9.5.1 Ashurbanipal’s Personal Take on the Extispicy Omen Series iškar
bārûti 360
9.5.2 The Liver Models in the Broader Context of the Historical
Omens 366
xii Contents

9.5.3 Military Victory and the Right to Kingship: The Liver Model of
Daduša 369
9.5.4 Ashurbanipal’s Appropriation of the Omen Compendia 373

10 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals 379

10.1 Cultic and Ritual Contributions to Assyrian Ideological
Discourse 379
10.2 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating in a Changing Political
Matrix 382
10.3 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 390
10.3.1 Introduction 390
10.3.2 The Tākultu-ritual 392
10.3.2.1 Envisioning a Unified Territory: The Development of the Tākultu-
Ritual 392
10.3.2.2 The Legal Implications of the Tākultu-Ritual 399
10.3.2.3 The Dynamics of Relational Space 402
10.3.2.4 The Theological Vision of the Tākultu-Ritual 404
10.4 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabaṭu, Addaru and
Nisannu 407
10.5 The Akītu-festival in Aššur 416
10.6 The Neo-Assyrian Ištar Rituals 427
10.7 The Intermediality of Myth, Ritual, and Cultic
Commentaries 432
10.8 The Assyrian Coronation Ritual 435
10.9 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship 441

11 The Voice of the Scholar 448

11.1 Tradition and Scholarly Agency 448
11.2 The Scholars at the Assyrian Court 450
11.3 The King as Sage and the Mobilization of Asymmetrical
Relationships 456
11.4 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars 461

Appendix 468
No. 1 LKA 62 468
No. 2 Rm 2, 455 (CT 35 pls. 37‒38) 476

Bibliography 477
 Contents xiii

Indices 531
Subjects 531
Ancient Texts 535
Personal Names 536
Divine Names 539
Geographical Names 541
Scholars 543
Words and Phrases (by language) 545
Index Locorum (Texts) 548
Abbreviations
AfO Archiv für Orientforschung
AHw Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 volumes. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
ARET 7 A. Archi, Archivi reali di Ebla, Testi. Testi amministrativi: registrazioni di
metallic e tessuti. Roma: Missione archeologica italiana in Siria, 1988
ARI A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
1976
ArOr Archiv Orientální
ASJ Acta Sumerologica (Middle Eastern Culture Center Japan)
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BAK H. Hunger, Babylonisch-assyrische Kolophone. AOAT 2; Kevelaer: Verlag
Butzon und Bercker, 1968
BagM Baghdader Mitteilungen
BASOR Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research
BATSH Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad / Dūr Katlimmu, Berlin
BATSH 4 E. Cancik-Kirschbaum, Die mittelassyrischen Briefe ausTall Šēḫ Ḥamad.
Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1996
BiOr Bibliotheca Orientalia
CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Chicago: The Oriental Institute; Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum
CTN Cuneifrom Texts from Nimrud. London
CUSAS Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology
CUSAS 10 A. R. George, Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection. Bethesda:
CDL Press, 2009
CUSAS 17 George, A. R. Ed. Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the
Schøyen Collection. Bethesda: CDL Press, 2011
CUSAS 18 George, A. R., Babylonian Divinatory Texts Chiefly in the Schøyen Collection.
Bethesda: CDL Press, 2013
Emar 6/3 D. Arnaud, Recherches au Pays d’Aštata. Paris: Éditions Rechereche sur les
Civilisations
FAOS Freiburger Altorientalische Studien
FAOS 5 H. Steible, Die altsumerischen Bau- und Weihinschriften. Teil I. Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner
FAOS 7 I. J. Gelb (†) and B. Kienast, Die Altakkadischen Königsinschriften des Dritten
Jahrtausend v. Chr. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag
GAG W. von Soden and W. R. Mayer, Grundriss der Akkadischen Grammatik.
Analecta Orientalia 33. Roma: Pontificio Intituto Biblico, 1995
GBAO Göttinger Beiträge zum Alten Orient
GKT K. Hecker, Grammatik der Kültepe Texte. Roma: Institutum Biblicum, 1968
HdO Handbuch der Orientalistik
HUCA Hebrew Union College, Annual
IAS R. D. Biggs, Inscription from Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh, OIP 99. Chicago and London
1974
xvi Abbreviations

JANER Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Stduies
JEOL Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
LAPO Littératures Anciennes du Proche-Orient (Paros: Les Éditions du CERF)
LAS Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars, Parts I and II. Kevelaer-
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag, 1971)
MARI Mari, Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires. Paris: Recherches sur les
Civilisations
MARV Mittelassyrische Rechts- und Verwaltungsurkunden
NABU Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires
OAAS 1 C. Michel, Old Assyrian Bibliography. Old Assyrian Archives, Studies,
volume 1. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten 2003
OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis
PAPS Procedings of the American Philosophical Society
RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Handwörterbuch für Theologie und
Religionswissenschaft. Ed. H. D. Betz et al. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck
RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions
RIMA 1 A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennium BC
(To 1115). Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1987
RIMA 2 A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114‒
859 BC). Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1990
RIME 1 D. R. Frayne, Presargonic Period (2700‒2350 BC). Toronto, Buffalo, London:
University of Toronto Press, 2008
RIME 2 D. R. Frayne, Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2334‒2113 BC). Toronto, Buffalo,
London: University of Toronto Press, 1993
RIME 3/1 D. O. Edzard, Gudea and His Dynasty. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1997
RIME 4 D. R. Frayne, Old Babylonian Period (2003‒1595 BC). Toronto: University of
Toronto, 1990
RINAP 1 H. Tadmor and S. Yamada, The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III (7444‒
727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726‒722 BC), Kings of Assyria. Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2011
RINAP 3/1 A. K. Grayson and J. Novotny, The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of
Assyria (704‒681 BC), Part 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2012
RINAP 4 E. Leichty, The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680‒
669 BC) (The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, vol. 4. Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011
SAA State Archive of Assyria
SAA 1 S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I. Helsinki: Helsinki
University Press, 1987
SAA 2 S. Parpola and K. Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths.
Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988
SAA 3 A. Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. Helsinki: Helsinki
University Press, 1989
SAA 4 I. Starr, Queries to the Sungod. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1990
 Abbreviations xvii

SAA 6 T. Kwasman and S. Parpola, Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Niniveh,
Part I, Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1991
SAA 8 H. Hunger, Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings. Helsinki: Helsinki
University Press, 1992
SAA 9 S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1997
SAA 10 S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. Helsinki: Helsinki
University Press, 1993
SAA 12 L. Kataja and R. Whiting, Grants, Decrees and Gifts of the Neo-Assyrian
Period. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1995
SAAB State Archives of Assyria Bulletin
SAACT State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts
SAAS State Archive of Assyria Studies
SCCNH Studies of the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians
SMEA Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici
StBot Studien zu den Bogazköy Texten
SVAT E. Ebeling, Stiftungen und Vorschriften für assyrische Tempel. Berlin 1954
TCL 3 F. Thureau-Dangin, Une relation de la huitième campagne de Sargon (714 av.
J.-C.). Paris: P. Geuthner, 1912
UF Ugarit-Forschungen
WO Welt des Orients
WVDOG Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft
WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
ZAR Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte
1 Introduction
1.1 Setting the Stage
In his commemorative inscriptions the Assyrian king Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒
1197 BCE) relates that, subsequent to his victory over Babylon in 1215 BCE, he
transferred his residence from the city of Aššur to his newly founded capital,
Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta (figs. 1 and 2).1 The construction of the new royal capital
had been under way since the early years of his reign, and the ideological
message promulgated by Tukultī-Ninurta sought to link Assyria’s victory over
Babylon – the time-honored religious center – with the creation of a new politi-
cal and religious center in Assyria.2 Tukultī-Ninurta’s extraordinary move from
Aššur to Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta included not only the building of a new royal
palace, but also the attempt to transfer the cult of the god Aššur away from
the city Aššur, an act unique in Assyrian history.3 This audacious development
took place when the Middle Assyrian state was at the peak of its territorial
expansion, counting for a short time Babylonia among its domains. By explor-
ing the ideological discourse employed by Tukultī-Ninurta I to justify his politi-
cal decisions, I intend to set the stage for an investigation of the history of the
cultural discourse surrounding Assyrian kingship from the late third millenni-
um through to the Neo-Assyrian period. First, however, I will shed light on the
rich tapestry of traditions implicated in the naming of Tukultī-Ninurta’s new
palace, in order to provide the reader with an inkling of the immense potential
of possible insights that the modern scholar can gain from taking such choices
seriously.
The building inscriptions commemorating Tukultī-Ninurta I’s move to Kār-
Tukultī-Ninurta record the ceremonial names given to the newly built Aššur
temple and to the new royal palace. To my knowledge, this is the only known
example in which temple and palace share the same name: “house, mountain
of all the me” (é.kur.me.šár.ra),4 and “palace of all the me” (é.gal.me.šár.ra)5
respectively. The name of the palace was rendered in Akkadian as bīt kiššati,

1 RIMA I A.0.78.22‒25.
2 Gilibert 2008, 179.
3 Instances such as the presence of Aššur’s dagger in Kanesh must be regarded as a strategy
for extending Aššur’s agency in the juridical context (Donbaz 2001; see further CAD P, 279‒
280, s.v. patru and CAD Š/3, 196 f. s.v. šugariāu) and should be distinguished from Tukultī-
Ninurta I’s move.
4 RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:114. For the name of the temple see George 1993, no. 687. The name is
derived from that of Enlil’s temple in Nippur (Machinist 1978, 526).
5 RIMA 1, A.0.78.22:51.
2 Introduction

Fig. 1: Socle of Tukultī-Ninurta I (Berlin Vorderasiatisches Museum, Assur 19869/VA 8146;

Photo: Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008, 210; Drawing: Black and Green 1992, 29).
 Setting the Stage 3

Fig. 2: Socle of Tukultī-Ninurta I with Base Frieze (Photo: Moortgat 1969, fig. 247; Drawing of
Frieze: Pittman 1996, 351, fig. 24).

‘house of totality.’ This is not a literal translation of the Sumerian ceremonial

name, but instead reflects the title “king of totality,” šar kiššati. As such, it
recalls an ideology that had emerged under the kings of Akkad,6 and was then
reproduced in the ceremonial name for Tukultī-Ninurta I’s palace in Aššur it-
self, which was called “house of the king, sovereign of the lands” (é.lugal.
umun.kur.kur.ra), evoking the Enlilship of Aššur-Enlil.7 I would like to take
this onomastic phenomenon as the point of departure for my discussion of
Assyrian royal ideology and ask: what did the king and his scholars have in

6 Röllig (1993) 112‒113; Schachner 2007.

7 For a discussion of Aššur’s Enlilship see chapter 9.2.4.
4 Introduction

mind when choosing this particular ceremonial name for Tukultī-Ninurta I’s
palace in his new residence? How does it relate to their claim of universal
control?
The Sumerian ceremonial name “Palace of All the me” is reminiscent of
names given to temples of Inanna/Ištar, who is renowned in Sumerian mythol-
ogy for stealing the me from her father Enki in Eridu and bringing them to the
city of Uruk.8 Among the temple names evoking this myth are the “house
which gathers all the me” (é.me.kìlib.ur₄.ur₄) of the goddess in Larsa,9 the
“house which lifts on high all the me” (é.me.kìlib.ba.sag.íl) of Inanna/Ištars
messenger Ninšubur at Girsu?,10 the “house of skillfully-contrived me”
(é.me.galam.ma), akītu-temple of Ištar at Akkade,11 the “house of scattered(?)
me” (é.me.bir.ra),12 a shrine in Aššur’s temple Ešarra at Aššur, and the “house
of the me of Inanna” (é.me.dInanna), the temple of the Assyrian Ištar at Aššur,
which in the building inscriptions of Tukultī-Ninurta I appears in its abbreviat-
ed form é.me.13 All of these Sumerian ceremonial temple names relate in a
condensed form to the mythology surrounding the goddess Inanna/Ištar, and
the space of the temple as res extensa of her divine body echoes her “biogra-
phy.” The goddess, her agency, and her lived-in space within the urban land-
scape of the Mesopotamian cities had merged into one and become part of the
cultural landscape of their inhabitants.
As seen by the mythologizing connotations of temple names incorporating
the me, Tukultī-Ninurta I’s decision to include the me in the name of his palace
was not arbitrary. By referencing the me, Tukultī-Ninurta I demonstrates a de-
sire to connect Assyrian kingship with the divine figure of Ištar. According to
the Sumerian myth Inanna and Enki, the me include all the cultural norms,
institutions, professions, and positive and negative aspects of human behav-
ior.14 The me also encompass the institution of kingship and its associated in-
signia, thereby designating Inanna as the patron deity of kingship.15 Although
in the later second millennium BCE the meaning of Sumerian me is restricted
through its much narrower Akkadian translation as parṣu – “cultic regula-

8 For the myth Inanna and Enki, see Farber-Flügge 1973; Hallo 1997, 522‒26; Farber 1987‒90;
Glassner 1992.
9 George 1992, 61:25; 79:7′ and 25; 223, 321 f. 476; George 1993, no. 759.
10 George 1993, no. 757.
11 George 1993, no. 754.
12 George 1992, 187, A List of Shrines in E-šarra l. 2′.
13 George 1993, no. 756.
14 Alster 2006, 13‒36. On the Me see further Glassner 1992; Zgoll 1997, 66‒75; Krebernik 2002,
41 f.
15 For the quotation of the relevant passage see further Chapter 5.1.
 Setting the Stage 5

tion”16 – the choice of the name é.gal.me.šár.ra for Tukultī-Ninurta’s palace

implies knowledge of its more inclusive ancient meaning and its association
with Inanna/Ištar. The Akkadian rendering of this name as “house of totality”
in turn projects control over the conquered world, as well as over those regions
of the world with which Assyria interacted through peaceful means, primarily
trade and diplomatic arbitration. This notion is explicit in the royal title “king
of Kish,” which was iconic as early as the reign of king Mesalim of Kish (ca.
2600 BCE).17 By the time of the kings of Akkade, the title had come to mean
‘king of totality,’ šar kiššati, “using the similarity of the name of the city of
Kish and the Akkadian term for ‘the entire inhabited world,’ kishshatum.”18
Tukultī-Ninurta I’s ceremonial name for his new palace, consequently, was in-
tended to promulgate the king’s claim to universal control “by the love” of
Innana/Ištar; in other words, the king’s effective empowerment through the
grace and goodwill of Inanna/Ištar,19 perpetuating an idea that originated in a
Sumerian context and was adapted in subsequent periods. This is clear, for
instance, in the tradition regarding the legendary king Etana, in which Ištar
seeks a suitable individual to occupy the position of king established by the
gods.20
In its highly abbreviated form, the ceremonial name of Tukultī-Ninurta I’s
palace thus epitomizes the theological metastructure of Assyrian kingship. The
centrality of the goddess Ištar to Assyrian kingship is apparent in the fact that
Tukultī-Ninurta I committed himself to building a double temple to Ištar-Aššur-
ītu and Dinītu as soon as he ascended the throne, with Dinītu replacing Bēlat-
Akkadî in one version of the building inscriptions.21 To that end, Tukultī-Ninur-
ta demolished the former Ištar temple, justifying this action through the claim
that Ištar explicitly communicated her desire for a new building with a differ-
ent outline.22 Claiming that a specific deity expressed his or her will explicitly
is a cultural strategy that we will encounter much later with Sennacherib’s
reconfiguration of the Aššur temple in Aššur as well.
In Middle Assyrian times, Ištar had multiple cults dedicated to her various
manifestations in Aššur alone, among them those of Anunītu, the Assyrian

16 See Šamšī-Adad I’s comment on Ištar’s temple in Mari, for instance: ‘E-me’urur, temple
which gathers the ME,’ é.me.[ur₄.ur₄], é mu-ha-mi-im pa-ar-ṣí in his dedication inscription of
two lions for Ištar, Charpin 1984, 45‒47.
17 Rubio 2007, 16.
18 Van de Mieroop 2007, 64.
19 Westenholz 2000.
20 For a re-edition of the Etana Myth see Haul 2000, and more recently Wilson 2007.
21 RIMA 1, A.0.78.15.
22 RIMA 1, A.0.78.11: 82‒86 and A.0.78.12.
6 Introduction

Ištar (Ištar-Aššurītu),23 Ištar-of-Heaven (Ištar-ša-šamê), Ištar-of-Nineveh (Ištar-

ša-Ninuaki), Ištar-of-Arbela, and her hypostasis as Bēlet-ekalli and Šarrat-ni-
pha.24 All of these Ištar figures shared a bellicose aspect, which bore upon
Ištar’s active, though not exclusive, support for the king during military cam-
paigns intended to actualize his control over ‘totality.’ Ištar’s other central as-
pect is her role as protector of the king, on whose behalf she mediates with the
chief god and the divine assembly. The tropes expressing her protection of the
king extend from her role as name-giver in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures
and the Sacred Marriage attested in Sumerian royal hymns25 to her role as
nurse and wet nurse of the king in Late Assyrian prophecies. Ištar-Anunītu was
introduced in Aššur during the Akkad period, when the kings of Akkad called
themselves her ‘favorite’ and her ‘consort,’ and then reintroduced under Tukul-
tī-Ninurta I. It is also during the Middle Assyrian period that we encounter the
first evidence for prophetesses in Aššur. The possibility that the institution of
prophetesses was similarly (re)-introduced under Tukultī-Ninurta should be
kept in mind, as Ištar-Anunītu is well attested in Amorite tradition (Mari in
particular) as being a prophesying deity for the king. In any event, all of these
tropes share a common emphasis on Ištar’s love for the king.26
In ancient juridical language love signified both the protection of an over-
lord for his vassal and the loyalty of the vassal to his overlord,27 a view that
made its way into Sumero-Babylonian and Assyrian ideological discourse and
represents one of the many examples of the close association between religion
and law in the ancient Near East. This conceptualization of love constituted
one of the most powerful instruments for the legitimization of the king’s occu-
pation of the throne, with the love of Inanna/Ištar guaranteeing the protection
and love of the chief god Enlil or Aššur. That this trope enjoyed a broad diffu-
sion through Mesopotamia and Syria is evident also from the archaeological
evidence, notably in the close association of the Ištar temple with the palace
in Alalah28 and the Old Babylonian representation of the king’s enthronement
under the loving supervision of Ištar in Zimrilim’s palace in Mari.29

23 This goddess already existed side by side with Aššur in the Old Assyrian period, see Hirsch
1961, 22.
24 Meinhold 2009.
25 Jones 2003; Lapinkivi 2004; 2008; Rubio 2009, 61‒62.
26 Pongratz-Leisten 2003, 150 ff.; 2008.
27 Moran 1963.
28 Yener 2005, fig. 4.27 and Lauinger 2008.
29 Note, however, that although during the Early Dynastic period the palace contained a large
sanctuary, by the Old Babylonian period many of its rooms had been reused for secular pur-
poses and only the cella of Anunitum remained; the temple of Ištar ša ekallim must have been
moved outside of the palace, see Heinrich 1982, 133.
 Setting the Stage 7

Ištar-Šauška, a Hurrian hypostasis of the goddess Ištar, played a role in

the city of Nineveh equivalent to that of Ištar in her various hypostases in the
city of Aššur. This is true at least as early as the time of Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒
1776 BCE), as during the Hurrian occupation preceding Šamšī-Adad I’s con-
quest Ištar-Šauška was the consort of Teššub, heading the Hurrian pantheon
together with him. Ištar-Šauška’s supra-regional status is acknowledged by
Hammurabi in the prologue to his Law Code30 mentioning her and her city
among the places he conquered in the Old Babylonian period. As a supra-re-
gional deity Ištar-Šauška appears again in the international treaties concluded
by the Hittites with the Mitanni kingdom and other vassals such as Nuhhašše
and the Arzawa Country.31 Hammurabi’s epithet in connection with Ištar of
Nineveh is interesting: although he is a contemporary of Šamšī-Adad I, Ham-
murabi refers to Ištar-Šauška’s temple in Nineveh as é.mès.mès where he “pro-
claimed the me of Ištar.” After renovating the sanctuary originally built by the
Old Akkadian king Maništušu,32 Šamšī-Adad I, by contrast, uses the ceremoni-
al name é.me.nu.è “house of the me, which do not leave.”
The name chosen for Tukultī-Ninurta I’s palace at Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta thus
draws upon a rich tapestry of traditions, woven over hundreds and hundreds
of years from Sumero-Babylonian, Amorite and Hurrian traditions alike. It
dresses an originally cosmological message in a political garb, indicating that
the Assyrian palace (= king) now shares Ištar’s role in controlling the me. With
the name é.gal.me.šár.ra, the king is also promoting the palace as the cosmic
stronghold, a function formerly reserved for the temple. Note the description
of Enki’s temple in Enki’s Journey to Nippur:

Your lock has no rival. Your bolt is a fearsome lion. Your roof beams are the bull of
heaven, an artfully made bright headgear. Your reed-mats are like lapis lazuli, decorating
the roof-beams. Your vault is a bull (some mss. have instead: wild bull) raising its horns.
Your door is a lion who (seizes a man) (1 ms. has instead: is awe-inspiring) Your staircase
is a lion coming down on a man.33

With this type of ideological discourse, for the first time, king and palace ex-
plicitly emulate the roles and functions formerly ascribed exclusively to the
divine world.

30 Roth 1997, CH iv 59‒63.

31 For references see Beckman 1999, 216.
32 Ziegler 2005, 26 emphasizes the ideological scope of Šamšī-Adad I’s reference to the Akka-
dian king who attributed his power and his origins to the dynasty of Akkad.
33 ETCSL 1.1.4: 26‒32; al Fouadi 1969; Ceccarelli 2012.
8 Introduction

The preceding analysis of the ceremonial name of Tukultī-Ninurta I’s new

palace provides a glimpse of the rich texture of Assyrian ideology. It is clear
that this ideology draws on various traditions, a fact frequently obscured by
the tendency of modern scholarship to categorize these traditions in blunt geo-
graphical terms like Southern and Northern Mesopotamia. Also evident is the
need to pay close attention to the details of Assyrian ideological discourse and
to the complexity of particular features of this discourse, among them royal
titulary.34 For instance, as soon as Tukultī-Ninurta I loses control over Babylo-
nia, he abandons the title “king of the four directions.”
Tukultī-Ninurta I’s reign is a formative moment in the development of As-
syrian royal ideology, heralding the explicit representation of the Assyrian king
as an active participant in the establishment of cosmic order in concert with
the divine world. To propagate this image of the king effectively, the scholars
in his entourage turned to every medium at their disposal – text, image, archi-
tecture, and ritual. The motive for the ‘activism’ apparent in official discourse
may be sought in the imperialist expansion driving Assyrian politics beginning
in the fourteenth century BCE. This expansion resulted in dramatic changes to
the ethno-linguistic makeup of Assyria’s population. As more and more non-
Assyrian people were integrated into the empire, Assyria became “less and less
Assyrian culturally and linguistically.”35 Subsequent large-scale migrations –
particularly by Aramaeans – deeply affected the cultural landscape. Following
the collapse of Hittite control in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent, small
Aramaic kingdoms emerged; later, Aramaean populations spread throughout
Mesopotamia.36
The Assyrian royal discourse that emerged under Tukultī-Ninurta I with
its cosmological and mythic overtones should be considered the ideological
response of the scholars working at the Assyrian court to these political devel-
opments. One can assume that the rulers of Mesopotamia always relied on
the competence of scholars and experts for programmatic statements of their
rulership. This is already apparent in the Old Babylonian Period in the elabo-
rate ideological discourse created by king Šamšī-Adad I in response to and as

34 Liverani 1981; Cifola 2004, 14.

35 Beaulieu 2004, 192.
36 The Aramaeans, known in the cuneiform sources as the Aḫlamū, appear already in the
inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I as a major force in the area of the Middle Euphrates, which the
Assyrian military strove to control. Whether the Ahlamu attested in Sippar-Amnanum during
the Old Babylonian period are to be equated with the later Aramaeans as suggested by Lipiński
2000, 37, remains open to debate. On the Assyrian-Aramaean interaction see Fales 1986, 1991,
2000, 2005, 2007a, 2007b, 2011.
 Setting the Stage 9

a consequence of his political activities and in the presence of diviners in the

entourage of the kings of Mari and Ešnunna. Nevertheless, a royal scholar in
the direct entourage of the king of Assyria emerges for the first time in the
figure of Marduk-nādin-ahhē, a descendant of a Babylonian family of scholars,
who moved from Babylonia to Aššur to enter into the service of King Aššur-
uballiṭ I (1353‒1318 BCE) as ṭupšar šarre (scribe/astrologer? of the king).37 This
appointment bears witness not only to what later became the institution of the
“royal scholar” (ummân šarri) as adviser to the king – an institution spelled out
in the Synchronistic King List 38 and abundantly attested in Sargonid epistolary
literature – but also to the presence of Babylonian scholars at the Assyrian
court, known from the Middle Assyrian period at the latest. Naturally, this pres-
ence implied new impulses to the formation of Assyrian ideological discourse.
Exploring how this discourse both reflected and informed power relations,
I will focus specifically on the history of Assyrian kingship and its conception
in myth, historiography, ritual, and imagery. An attempt will be made to treat
Assyrian kingship in context, demonstrating its receptivity to Sumero-Babylo-
nian tradition on the one hand and to Hittite-Hurrian tradition on the other.39
Further, the ideology of Assyrian kingship will be analyzed as a product of
the dynamic interface between political action and the paradigms of rulership
developed by erudite scholars in the entourage of the king. At this point I must
emphasize that I am well aware of the pitfalls of identifying language groups
with concepts of ethnicity and social identity.40 The problem is particularly
vexing with regard to the Hurrians, who were ubiquitous in Northern Syria
during the third millennium and influenced Assyrian cultural discourse, but
whose major cultural expressions – particularly ritual and mythic traditions –
survived only in the libraries of the Hittite kingdom in the city of Hattuša.

37 Wiggermann 2008; Wiggermann provides a list of several such scholars during the Middle
Assyrian period which included also a royal exorcist (āšip šarre) during the reign of Shalma-
neser I (1263‒1234 BCE).
38 Found at the city of Aššur, this king list is a list of Assyrian and Babylonian kings arranged
synchronically, which also names the chief scholars to the kings. Unfortunately there is a large
gap in the text covering the kings preceding Tukultī-Ninurta I, so that we do not know exactly
when the Assyrians themselves considered this tradition to have started, Weidner 1926; Gray-
son 1980‒1983, 116‒121 no. 12 and comments by Heeßel 2010, 165 with fn. 55.
39 Peter Machinist has collected the evidence for the military interaction between the Assyri-
ans and Hittites and remains a little doubtful with regard to their cultural interaction (Machin-
ist 2005). I would like to adduce some evidence throughout this book in that regard. See fur-
ther Harrak 1987, and my discussion in Chapter 4.3.
40 See most recently Michalowski 2011, 84 in his discussion on the Amorites with reference
to Kamp and Yoffee 1980; Emberling 1997, and Emberling and Yoffee 1999; on the problem of
the Amorite question see most recently Durand 2012 with further bibliography.
10 Introduction

However, as the goal of this book is to identify the formation of the Assyrian
ideological discourse in its intercultural exchange with Northern and Southern
traditions, this taxonomy will be kept with allude caution.

1.2 Why This Book?

The publication of Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead’s work on Assyrian history in
response to Ernst Curtius’ Griechische Geschichte and Theodor Mommsen’s
Römische Geschichte41 gave Assyria its own voice in ancient history, and Assyr-
ia has fascinated modern scholarship ever since. The Assyrians have left us a
vast range of textual and archeological material, presenting the modern schol-
ar with a rare opportunity to trace Assyrian history over the course of two mil-
lennia. Situated at the heart of the ancient Near East – between the Iranian
mountains to the East, the Syrian steppe to the West, the Anatolian mountain
ranges to the North and the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia to the South – Aš-
šur’s existence and survival was predicated on and defined by intense cultural
interaction throughout its history. Due to its beneficial geographical location,
the city state of Aššur originally operated primarily as a trade hub linking Iran,
Southern Iraq, and Anatolia. Developing from its beginnings as a city state,
Assyria eventually burst onto the scene of history as the world’s first hegemon-
ic empire, inspiring awe and terror in future generations and informing the
work of biblical prophets and Greek historians alike. Archaeological excavation
of the Assyrian heartland began as early as the mid-nineteenth century, in the
period of colonial appropriation of the Ottoman Empire.42 Initial excavations
were centered on the once glorious capitals, which had largely been built dur-
ing Assyria’s rapid expansion in the first half of the first millennium BCE. As-
syria’s monumental palaces, with their expansive reliefs and developed ico-
nography dedicated to the military campaigns of the Assyrian kings, deeply
impacted how the modern viewer perceived of that first world empire (fig. 3)
and served as an imperialist model for the nationalist ideologies developing in
France and Britain at the time.43
Subsequently, approaches to Assyrian history have focused primarily on
three goals: (1) writing a history of events;44 (2) reconstructing the historical

41 Olmstead 1923. For a survey on the early historiography of Assyria see Cancik-Kirschbaum
2011.
42 Larsen 1996 and Liverani 2005, 223‒225.
43 Bohrer 1992, 1998, and 2001; Bahrani 2001; Larsen 1996.
44 Among major monographs figure von Soden 1937; Mayer 1995; Lamprich 1995; Parker 2001;
Yamada 2000 all of them focusing on aspects of the first millennium Assyrian history. For the
research on Middle Assyrian history see Chapter 4.3.
 Why This Book? 11

Fig. 3: James Fergusson, Nimrud (Bahrani, 2001, 17; after A.H. Layard Monuments of Nineveh,
London: John Murray 1849).

geography of the Assyrian empire;45 and (3) exploring the strategies of Assyri-
an propaganda.46 The sources available for such inquiry are fortunately quite
plentiful. Numerous text editions of Assyrian royal inscriptions have been
made available through the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia project, formerly
headed by A. K. Grayson at the University of Toronto and now under the custo-
dianship of Grant Frame at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as through
the published dissertations of Eckart Frahm,47 Andreas Fuchs,48 and the work
of Hayim Tadmor.49 A massive edition of the Kujunjik libraries is being pub-
lished volume by volume through the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project in Hel-
sinki under the directorship of Simo Parpola. Parpola’s edition of the letters

45 Of particular interest in this regard are the immense research project undertaken by the
Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients in the 1970s under the directorship of Wolfgang Röllig,
in which Assyria represented one geographical area, and the Helsinki Atlas published as part
of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project headed by Simo Parpola at the University of Helsinki.
46 Major contributions in this research area were made by Mario Fales, Steven W. Holloway,
Mario Liverani, Peter Machinist, Johannes Renger, and Hayim Tadmor, and I will discuss their
scholarship throughout this book.
47 Frahm 1997.
48 Fuchs 1994.
49 Tadmor 1994.
12 Introduction

written by ancient scholars to the kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal 50 has

given these experts an audible voice and laid bare their extensive involvement
in royal agency and decision-making.51 Other volumes dedicated to Neo-Assyri-
an treaties, letters, administrative records, grants, and judicial texts have com-
pletely changed the modern perception of how the empire functioned. Togeth-
er, these projects have added tremendous depth and nuance to the academic
understanding of Assyrian history and culture. The existence and accessibility
of this rich repertoire of sources available from first millennium Assyria distin-
guishes it from Babylonia and Egypt, both of which similarly developed into
large imperial states. These sources enable an investigation into the deep histo-
ry of Assyrian culture and tradition and permit a renewed exploration of the
“mechanics” of the origin and development of an ideological discourse that
would inform the operation of an empire.
Although sources for Assyrian history are not nearly as diverse or rich for
the third and second millennia, the aim of this book is to go back in time and
contextualize the development of Neo-Assyrian ideology from its origins in the
earliest days of Aššur. Simultaneously, this book seeks to document the enor-
mity of Assyria’s cultural interaction over space and time with “outside
groups”. Instead of exclusively analyzing the imperial discourse of the first
millennium BCE – an approach chosen by most scholars, including Mario Live-
rani,52 Hayim Tadmor,53 Steven Holloway,54 Mario Fales,55 and Stefan M.
Maul 56 – the goal here is to trace Assyrian ideology in its formative stages and
to expose the emergence of certain tropes during the early history of Aššur. In
other words, my primary interest lies in the development of Assyrian ideologi-
cal discourse against the backdrop of changing political-historical conditions.
Running an empire is a collaborative enterprise, and in Assyria “the em-
peror was obviously assisted by a large number of officials and courtiers, com-
petent in (and entrusted with) various specific functions: scribes and adminis-
trators, astrologers and magicians, servants and body guards.”57 In addition to
the operative and executive aspects of monarchical power, control of a large

50 Parpola 1970‒1983 and 1993b.

51 The website Knowledge and Power of the Assyrian Empire founded by Karen Radner and
Eleanor Robson has further facilitated access to the resources, http://oracc.museum.upenn.
edu/saao/knpp/.
52 Liverani 1973, 1979, 1981, 1992.
53 Fales 2001 and 2012.
54 Holloway 2002.
55 1999‒2000, 2001, 2012.
56 Maul 1991, 1995b, 1999, 2000a and 2000b.
57 Liverani 2005, 234.
 Why This Book? 13

territorial state required an ideological system that anchored the monarchy in

established ideational frameworks and religious traditions. The formulation
and promulgation of such an ideology was an act of agency. A further objective
of this book, therefore, is to reveal the voice of the ancient scholars and to
demonstrate their agency in the shaping of the image of the king in the surviv-
ing sources, even if the scholars as individuals remain lost to us.
In scholarship to date, royal ideological discourse has often been dis-
missed as straightforward propaganda more or less disconnected from the reli-
gious systems with which it was in dialogue. Since its introduction by Sir James
Frazer in his monumental work The Golden Bough (1890‒1900), discussion of
the idea of divine kingship has been taken up by René Labat in Le caractère
religieux de la royauté Assyro-Babylonienne (1939), Ivan Engnell in Studies in
Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (1943), and Cyril J. Gadd in Ideas of
Divine Rule in the Ancient Near East (1948). The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient
Man: An Essay of Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (1948), a collabo-
rative work by Henri Frankfort, Thorkild Jacobsen, and John A. Wilson, was a
key element of the postwar discourse on myth and ancient thought. This work,
based on a discussion of ancient mythological and religious texts, sought to
define the divide between ancient pre-scientific thought, lacking the capacity
for abstraction, and modern philosophy and science. Henri Frankfort’s mono-
graph Kingship and the Gods (1948) grew directly out of this collaboration; al-
though it rejected the universalistic approach of Sir James Frazer, it never-
theless adhered to the socio-cultural evolutionism and scientism of this period.
Motivated by a critical attitude toward the modern category of “divine” or
“sacred” kingship, the present book embarks on an in-depth examination of
the regional and temporal aspects of Assyrian cultural discourse and of the
many cultural strategies used to sacralize kingship in Assyria. To some degree
I am working with the same data that was available to René Labat, Ivan En-
gnell, and Henri Frankfort. Rather than operating with the notion of divine
kingship introduced by Sir James Frazer, my approach does not begin from the
question of whether the king should be considered a god but assumes instead
the fluid notion of the divine58 and examines strategies for sacralizing king-
ship, among them ritual, image, and narratives of power.
Following Frankfort’s work the study of kingship ceased for several de-
cades, to be revived only in recent years, as is demonstrated by the organiza-

58 For a more detailed discussion of the fluid notion of the divine and divine agency see
Pongratz-Leisten 2011b, which to some extent represents a response to the approach of Barbara
Nevling Porter 1997a and 2009.
14 Introduction

tion of several conferences dedicated to the subject.59 Even in more recent in-
vestigations relatively little attention has been directed at the dynamics of re-
gional traditions and their impact on the conceptualization of monarchy.60
Assyrian culture has for a long time been regarded as a “barbarian ‘parasite,’”
feeding off of Babylonian traditions. This is despite the fact that already in the
1980s Peter Machinist emphasized the particularities of Assyrian culture and
allowed Assyria to speak with its own voice.61 Machinist’s analysis of the Tukul-
tī-Ninurta Epic focuses primarily on the interpenetration of Assyrian and Baby-
lonian culture, observing astutely that Sumero-Babylonian traditions were wo-
ven into the epic.62 One goal of this book is to delve further into the Sumero-
Babylonian-Assyrian dialogue and, simultaneously, to broaden the element of
cultural interaction by viewing the development of Assyrian royal ideology in
light of Assyria’s interaction with Sumero-Babylonian tradition in the south
and Hurrian-Hittite traditions in Syria and Anatolia in the west and north. I
am, moreover, particularly interested in the origins of Assyrian ideology, as I
am persuaded that we can only fully appreciate the ideological discourse of
the Sargonid kings if we are aware of the rich tapestry of traditions their schol-
ars drew upon. My aim, therefore, is to trace the development of Assyrian ideo-
logical discourse from the end of the third millennium through to the Neo-
Assyrian period.
An investigation of the material and ideological conditions that determine
cosmology, weltanschauung, and the shaping of kingship cannot neglect the
underlying social apparatus. As mapped out above, Assyrian cultural discourse
was largely the product of an increasingly professional body of scholarly ex-
perts.63 The thread running through this book is the cooperation between the
intellectual and political elites and the king, framing his political action and
shaping his public body politic. This cooperation determined how kingship
made use of tradition in its ideological discourse to establish itself as the

59 For recent research see the conference organized by Nicole Brisch at the Oriental Institute
in Chicago, 2007, published by Brisch 2008, which lacks a treatment of Assyria, as stated by
Cooper in his response in Brisch 2008, 267, the conference organized by G. B. Lanfranchi,
the proceedings of which were published by Lanfranchi/Rollinger 2010, and the conference
organized by Holly Pittman, Ph. Jones et al., Cosmos and Politics in the Ideology of Kingship in
Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, which I had the fortune to attend.
60 See the contributions by Jacob Klein, Harry A. Hoffner, Peter Machinist, Ziony Zevit, and
G. A. Rendsburg in Beckman and Lewis 2006; Selz 1998 and 2001; Steinkeller 1999, and Jones
2005.
61 Machinist 1984‒85; see also Brinkman 1973.
62 Machinist 1976.
63 Gladigow 2004, 5.5.
 Why This Book? 15

guardian of cosmic order and how particular historical circumstances shaped

ideological discourse. Accordingly, this book deals with the dynamic and
asymmetrical relationships between king and religious elites as they were en-
acted by means of narratives of power, divination, and ritual performance.
Throughout this book I will discuss a broad array of literary sources and
annalistic literature, which established what I call the chaîne opératoire of the
ideal royal action (see especially Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight). This discus-
sion is very much dominated by the notion of myth as an analytical tool rather
than a state of mind, and so again my approach differs decisively from that of
the Frankfort School. Issues of intertextuality and fictionality and how historio-
graphic and literary texts inform each other with regard to their emplotment
and message are equally discussed in these chapters and additionally in Chap-
ter Nine. Ritual was a potent means of maintaining the balance of power be-
tween temple and palace and will be investigated in depth in Chapter Ten.
Narratives of power and ritual served to anchor kingship in the mythical
past and were essential strategies for sacralizing kingship. Because ritual and
narratives of power were informed by and made use of myth and weltanschau-
ung, they adapted perpetually to changing political landscapes. Kingship in
turn functioned both as the stimulus for the production of knowledge and cos-
mologies, as well as their crystallized expression. As such, considering myth,
ritual, and kingship together is crucial to understanding the social efficacy of
myth. This book does not regard tradition as a monolithic body of knowledge.
Instead, it focuses on the mobilization of multiple strategies and the agency
behind them in order to explore the dynamics of “re-invented tradition” in
ever-changing historical circumstances.
Political agency, too, cannot be explained exclusively as the product of
social function or individual motivations, but is to be understood as the out-
come of a certain weltanschauung, which in antiquity was often expressed in
mythic patterns of explanation, interpretation and orientation.64 By taking into
consideration the dynamic interaction between religious and ideological con-
cepts and societal organization in their historical dimensions, this book at-
tempts to bridge the modern division between religion and politics. For this
study, religious systems are not understood as purely symbolic systems repre-
senting a “real” world outside of religion, and neither is myth categorized sim-
ply as the condensed iteration of religious systems. The assumption here is
that cosmogonies and myths at large not only create their own versions of the
world – versions that change depending on context or text genre – but that

64 Kippenberg 1995, 14 f.
16 Introduction

they also have a strong impact on the political action of elites and on their
ideological discourse. Conversely, while the weltanschauung expressed in myth
can inform political action, ideological innovation tends to follow rather than
precede expansionist ambitions and new conquests. In other words, religion is
considered the “privileged transcendent system of culture that encompassed,
structured, disciplined, and permeated all” other systems – politics, economy,
arts, etc. – so that “none of them can be understood as secular in the modern
sense.”65 I will return to the relationship between religion, tradition, and ideol-
ogy at the end of this chapter.
Tukultī-Ninurta I’s axiom that “peace cannot be made without conflict,”66
a principle governing combat myths generally and informing the Assyrian roy-
al inscriptions, determines the starting point for approaching the question of
cosmology and politics in Assyria more broadly.67 At stake were the dynamics
between cosmic order (kittu) and kratogenic chaos, constantly threatening to
destabilize and destroy civilization as embodied by the city.68 Although in
mythological narrative cosmic order was in the first instance established by
means of combat and the triumph of the warrior god, in reality it had to be
perpetually effectuated by the king through his administration of justice (mīša-
ru), i.e. securing civic order within the community, and through achieving con-
cord (mitgurtu) and peace (salīmu) with the enemy,69 i.e. mitigating the harmful

65 Lincoln 2008, 223.

66 Machinist 1978a, Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, A iii 15′, ul iššakan salīmu balu mithuṣu; Foster 2005,
306.
67 When considering the evidence of cosmogonic accounts and their context in Mesopotamia,
it is revealing to note that, with very few exceptions, there are no such cosmogonies in their
own right. The textual tradition of that region does not reflect a primary concern to learn about
or depict the cosmos for the sake only of knowing or explaining its origins. Instead, cosmogo-
nies function as analogies and etiologies for a particular plot, figure or the purpose of a specific
text and ritual. As such, they have their place as prologues to larger poems and songs revolv-
ing around specific heroes or tools, as well as to dialogues, songs, and omen series. Further-
more, they play a major role in building rituals (Ambos 2004) and healing rituals meant to re-
establish a primordial state of perfection. Moreover, cosmogonic concepts in abbreviated forms
inform the ceremonial names of temples and palaces, royal titulary, historical narratives, state
ritual, and iconography, and as such provide the key metaphor and conceptual framework for
change and innovation (For the transformative effect of ritual see Turner 1967; Bell 1992, 184).
68 Karen Sonik in press, alters the terminology used by Jan Assmann 2003, 189 to describe
the distinction between cosmogonic chaos as primeval amorphous state from which sprang
the order of creation and cratogony, i.e. the establishment of rule to kratogenic carrying the
notion of consolidation and stability as housed within the city shifting the emphasis on the
dynamics of civilization.
69 Cancik-Kirschbaum 1997.
 Fascination with the Assyrian Kings 17

forces of disorder and confusion that existed within the organized universe but
outside of the city and territory controlled by the king. Toward the end of the
Sargonid period, the king Esarhaddon (680‒669 BCE) explicitly evokes the in-
divisible relationship between royal agency and cosmic order by mapping his
kingship into the regular paths of the celestial bodies in the heavens:

they (the gods) [named] me [for shepherd]ing the land and the people. In [order] to give
the land and the people verdicts of truth and justice, the gods [Sîn and] Šamaš, the twin
gods, took the road of truth and justice monthly.70

1.3 Fascination with the Assyrian Kings

Despite regional and temporal variations and differences, there always existed
in Mesopotamia a system of beliefs and symbols aimed at cultural cohesion.
In building their empire, the Assyrian kings drew on the diversity of cultural
traditions by which they were surrounded and perfected an ideological system
creating a sense of cultural cohesion, even though this sometimes developed
differently at the local level. The Assyrian emphasis on cultural integration to
construct a unified political community out of a rapidly expanding heteroge-
neous multilingual and multiethnic population – an integration enforced in
part by their massive deportation politics – is what distinguished them from
the Babylonians, who from the beginning comprised a conglomeration of city
states. In the long history of the ancient Near East, the Assyrians stand out in
their endeavor to create a coherent political and ideological system capable of
transforming the intercultural heterogeneous landscape into a homogeneous
intra-cultural empire dominated by a shared symbolic system. Well aware of
the dynamics of conflict between the centralized court and other sectors of
society, and the fragility of power relationships in the making and remaking of
their political landscape, the Assyrians strove to create a communal sense
based on key-metaphors which were evoked throughout the territory of their
empire. These key-metaphors served the respective political elites in their
“conversation” with the center.
In contrast to the various unified polities in Babylonia, which comprised
several formerly independent city states, Assyria grew out of the single city
state of Aššur. Given that the name of the city and its chief god are identical,
this historical process “marks the native understanding of the land as the ex-

70 RINAP 4 no. 57 i 1′‒8′.

18 Introduction

tension of the city and the god.”71 Essential to the Assyrian imperial ideology,
consequently, is that the city of Aššur and her patron deity, i.e., the original
political and cultic center, function as a cipher for the center of the empire
regardless of the location of the royal residences, which changed over time. At
various times, however, this core concept was challenged. This is particularly
clear in the cases of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta and Khorsabad, the newly-constructed
residences of Tukultī-Ninurta I and Sargon II (722‒705 BCE) respectively, and
in the reaction of the professional elites in Aššur, who were closely linked with
the Aššur temple, to the building of these cities. Despite such occasional ten-
sions, the scholars of Aššur were deeply involved in the organization of the
state cult and in mapping the king’s image onto the mind of the people, and
they managed to monopolize Aššur’s role as the cultural metropolis of Assyria.
It is through their eyes that we have to read Assyrian ideological discourse.
In light of the idea that the dynamic growth of the Assyrian polity mirrored
the spread of the god Aššur’s divine presence, the state of Assyria defined itself
in relation to what lay beyond. The Assyrian kings considered it their primary
duty to constantly push Assyria’s frontiers towards the unknown. The royal
inscriptions in particular extol the king’s transformative ability to integrate the
world of disorder, – i.e. the non-Assyrian world – into the world of order, and
to make it a cohesive part of Assyria. As will be discussed in Chapter Six, royal
inscriptions are to be read as variations on the plotline of the narratives revolv-
ing around the warrior god Ninurta. Royal titulary reflects the kings’ efforts to
ensure correspondence between their controlled territory and cosmic dimen-
sions, and thus to live up to the divine command to expand Aššur’s territory.
This claim is expressed in titles such as ‘king of totality’ (šar kiššati), ‘king of
the four banks (= corners of the world)’ (šar kibrāt arba’i) and ‘who exercises
authority over the four banks from the rising to the setting sun,’ (šarru ša ultu
ṣītān adi šillān kibrāt arba’i ibêluma).72 These titles, as will be shown in Chapter
Four, were not unique to Assyria, but reach far back to the beginnings of politi-
cal attempts at unification in Mesopotamia and changed their meaning over
time.
In addition to the mythic discourse behind political agency, the deliberate
construction of the imperial space was instrumental in producing power, au-
thority, and legitimacy.73 The Assyrian kings developed multiple strategies for
fostering an “enduring perception of geopolitical relationships”74 as performed

71 Machinist 1993, 81.

72 Fuchs 1994, 49 Silbertafel.
73 Smith 2003, 101.
74 Smith 2003, 135.
 Fascination with the Assyrian Kings 19

in spatial practice, and for creating places that drew together the communities
of their empire into a single imagined civil community. These included the
following material, cultic and ideological strategies, most of which are attested
only during the Neo-Assyrian period:
1. The establishment of a network of communication and road systems de-
signed to facilitate exchange of information throughout the empire.75 This
vast road system represented “the logistical strength and organizational
power of the empire.”76
2. The implementation of massive hydraulic projects enabling the secure irri-
gation of vast regions in a dry-farming area. This demonstrated the effec-
tiveness and technological transformative power of rulership and concom-
itantly displayed the king’s ability to maintain the divinely envisioned
world order.
3. The construction of an urban fabric that fostered a close proximity be-
tween the palace and the temples, with residential quarters of high offi-
cials adjacent to the citadel, segregated by fortified walls from the rest of
the walled city.
4. The implementation of an Assyrian style in the institutional architecture
of the provincial capitals, thereby endowing political space with new
meaning.
5. The erection of steles at the gates of conquered cities in the periphery in
order to evoke the constant presence of the Assyrian king in the company
of the Assyrian gods; the carving of rock reliefs served the same purpose
of manifesting a constant Assyrian presence.77
6. The strengthening of the position of the Aššur temple as the religious cen-
ter of the empire. This was achieved through the establishment of a system
of regular deliveries to the Aššur temple providing for the daily offerings
to the god Aššur. These deliveries were contributed “in a fixed rota”78 by
the various provinces of Assyria,79 and the economic relationship they pro-
duced between Assyria’s cultic center and the provinces was vital to foster-
ing the experience of political belonging and obedience to Aššur, the su-
preme god of the Assyrians.80
7. The creation of a provincial system during the Middle Assyrian period that
was restructured under Tiglath-Pileser III, if not earlier.

75 Kessler 1980, 27‒78; Levine 1989; Liverani 1988; Postgate 1992.

76 DeMarrais, Castillo, and Earle 1996, 29.
77 Shafer 2007.
78 Postgate 2002, 2.
79 On the provinces see recently Radner 2006.
80 This aspect will be investigated by Joshua Jeffers in his dissertation on Tiglath-Pileser I.
20 Introduction

8. The renaming of conquered provincial centers with Assyrian toponyms.81

9. The setting up of the weapon of Aššur for the performance of the loyalty
oath.82
10. The development of a network of communication with the gods through
divinatory experts who reported to the center from all ends of the empire.83
11. The elaboration of state rituals in the imperial center that not only required
the presence of the king but turned him into an active agent through his
assumption of the role of the chief priest (šangû) of the god Aššur.

These cultural strategies were effective displays of royal power, anchored in

the weltanschauung and responding to the cultural imagination of the time at
large. While the economic measures taken to bind the Assyrian provinces to
the Aššur temple were imposed throughout the empire, other strategies dif-
fered in the extent to which they were applied in the territory of the empire,
as demonstrated in some instances below. Continuous exposure to representa-
tions of Assyrian ideology and Assyrian administrative measures had a pro-
found effect on the attitude of the people in the provinces and beyond, as is
apparent in the emulation by local elites of the Assyrian style of living.
Through exposure to the spatial practices mentioned above, they were sup-
posed to adopt an identity that was predicated upon faith in the universality
of Aššur.84 Institutionalizing Aššur as the common point of reference for all of
the empire’s subjects was thus intended to generate a sense of absolute loyalty
to the god and served as a vehicle for political loyalty to the king. This loyalty,
however, did not include religious conversion85 or the abandonment of the
personal god.
The measures undertaken by Assyrian rulers in order to reinforce their cen-
tralized control were numerous and wide-ranging. Their mere existence reflects

81 Pongratz-Leisten 1997.
82 Attestations for the establishment of Aššur’s weapon are constrained chronologically to the
period between 745 and 696 BCE and are limited to seven instances in the royal inscriptions.
In six cases the installation of the weapon follows the transformation of a city into a provincial
capital. In most cases the weapon of Aššur was raised at the extreme limits of the Assyrian
provincial network, in Babylonia, Urartu, and Media and in bordering regions such as Cilicia
and southern Philistine. Very often the setting up of divine symbol and royal image was accom-
panied by resettlements of foreign groups in the city or provincial regions, see Holloway 2002
163.
83 Pongratz-Leisten 1999.
84 Ando 2000, 41 describes similar strategies for sustaining the Roman empire.
85 For diverging views in this debate see McKay 1973; Cogan 1974; Spieckermann 1982; Cogan
1993; Machinist 2003.
 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They Intertwine 21

the fragility of monarchic power in Assyria and calls for a re-evaluation of the
operation of the Assyrian empire which, from my point of view, was able to
function only because of the cooperation and collusion between the ruler and
political and scholarly elites. While recent research has been very successful
in shedding light on the political and economic aspects of the operation of
the Assyrian empire, this book aims at delineating the cultural and religious
strategies that allowed it to function.

1.4 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They

Intertwine
Let me begin by clarifying what I mean by the terms ‘tradition,’ ‘cultural dis-
course,’ and ‘ideology,’ as well as why and how I will use them throughout the
book. Over time, scholarship has developed various labels for cultural know-
ledge, among them tradition,86 cultural discourse87 and, more narrowly, cultur-
al repertoire.88 I myself consider tradition the growing body of cultural memo-
ry, which is informed by social values and practices.89 This cultural legacy
materializes in cultural discourse, which is constantly reformulated and recon-
ceptualized in all media including myth and historiography, as well as in archi-
tecture, iconography, and ritual. My understanding of cultural discourse in-
cludes all media of expression – image, text, and ritual. Moreover, the dynam-
ics of the agency producing the media is just as important as the
communication between authors and audience, both of whom participate in
the production of culture and together constitute a discourse community.90 In
other words, tradition is the coherent body of the inherited cultural legacy
“that transcended political fragmentation, and cut through various divisions,
including linguistic diversity, to unify scribal intellectual worldviews in much
of the Near East,”91 while cultural discourse is the constant reformulation and
re-conceptualization of tradition, as enacted by the ancient scholars in the en-
tourage of the king and in the organization of local, regional, and supra-region-
al cults. Royal ideology then can be considered a subcategory of cultural dis-
course, namely the condensed form of the royal perspective, including all of

86 Eisenstadt 1973.
87 Greenblatt 2005.
88 Dorleijn/Vanstiphout 2003.
89 Eisenstadt and Graubard 1973; Arnason 2005.
90 Rafoth 1988.
91 Michalowski 2010, 8.
22 Introduction

its conceptual innovations, which is constantly worked into the traditional

framework.
Mesopotamian tradition has often been described as conservative and stat-
ic in nature, striving to maintain the status quo. This characterization has been
enhanced by the debate on pre-axial and axial civilizations, most recently pro-
moted by S. N. Eisenstadt.92 The dichotomy between traditional/premodern
societies as “closed types” and modern societies as “culturally dynamic, orient-
ed to change and innovation” very much informed the work of the founding
fathers of sociology such as de Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and
others.93 They tended to overlook the dynamics and tension between tradition
and cultural discourse, which were constantly transformed in response to actu-
al historical circumstances. In the case of Mesopotamia in particular, the no-
tion of world-historical transformations and innovations restricted to the peri-
od between the eighth and third centuries BCE remains unconvincing. Even
the most cursory investigation of the intertwining of religion and ideology in
Mesopotamia reveals that the early civilizations of the alluvial plain, due to
their geographical exposure to the northern and eastern mountains, the west-
ern steppes and desert, and, further to the west and the south, the Mediterrane-
an and the Persian Gulf, perpetually encountered new cultural and ethnic el-
ements. The ensuing cultural interaction entailed the constant adaptation and
transformation of new ideas and cultural practices, which in turn promoted
the perpetual re-invention of tradition. It has been suggested that major breaks
in the written tradition can be observed during the second millennium with
the restructuring of the “received canon,” resulting in the discontinuation of
entire categories of texts and a changed balance in favor of completely new
cultural schemes.94 The multi-ethnic and multi-lingual components of Mesopo-
tamian culture cannot be stressed enough, as “what we so glibly call ‘Mesopo-
tamian Civilization,’ is in reality, a convenient conceptual bricolage of many
different cultural features, spread out over millennia in generally the same geo-
graphical space. This long, extremely complex occupational sequence is full of
political and cultural breaks, discontinuities, local variation, and with its own
visionary as well as revivalist movements.”95 Geographic and ethnic terms,
therefore, can only serve as auxiliary devices to the modern scholar. The ex-
pression of cultural texts in a particular language and the use of particular
tropes at particular moments in time should be understood as a cultural choice

92 Eisenstadt 1986 and 1992.

93 Eisenstadt 1973, 2. For a survey on the scholarly history of axial age see Arnason 2005.
94 Michalowski 2005, 160.
95 Michalowski 2005, 159.
 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They Intertwine 23

determined by local or regional scribal practices and prevailing modes of schol-

arly production, all of which took place in an atmosphere of perpetual and
vivid exchange. Notwithstanding these local and regional dynamics, royal ide-
ology was surprisingly consistent with regard to the set of tropes and key meta-
phors it utilized to fashion a royal image that supported the claim of a particu-
lar king to be the equal of his peers on the international scene. While this set of
tropes emerged very early in Mesopotamian history, local and regional choices
expressing a preference for certain tropes over others were conditioned by spe-
cific historical circumstances. The kings of the Ur III period, for example,
stressed their connection to Gilgameš, Lugalbanda and Ninsun, all at home in
Uruk, which was not coincidentally the city from which the Ur III kings hail-
ed.96 This Ur III ideology, however, interestingly did not make its way into
Assyrian discourse which chose to rely on traditions of the kings of Akkad
instead.
Central to the correct understanding of ideology is the fact that, in antiqui-
ty, tradition and weltanschauung were entirely dominated and permeated by
religion. Ancient Near Eastern scholarship has tended to view religion as “one
cultural system among others (politics, economy, literature, art, philosophy,
fashion etc.), all of which enjoy relative independence,”97 rather than regard-
ing religion as the meta-discourse encompassing, structuring, and permeating
all others, ideology included. Archaeologists have also used the term ideology
“as a substitute for ‘world view’, ‘religion’ or ‘political doctrine,’”98 thus miss-
ing the opportunity to disentangle the various ways in which ritual, political
discourse, and visual media were informed by ideology, which again had to
respond to the religious weltanschauung. Last but not least, ideology has been
considered primarily in Marxist terms and understood as a strategy deployed
by political elites to influence social behavior,99 to disguise social and econom-
ic stratification,100 and to serve the integration of different social groups (class-
es, genders, professions, lineages, etc.) involved in power struggles.101 There
has thus been a “risk of reducing ideology to an unwieldy dichotomy between
domination and resistance,102 pigeonholing it in its worst two-dimensional

96 Wilcke 1989, 562 f. Utuhegal, probably the older brother of Urnammu, was from Uruk, see
Wilcke 1974, 192 f.
97 Lincoln 2008, 223.
98 McGuire and Bernbeck 2011, 166.
99 Ross 2005, 328.
100 Liverani 1979; Pollock 1999, 173.
101 McGuire and Bernbeck 2011, 174.
102 Miller, Rowlands, and Tilley 1989.
24 Introduction

form.”103 As a result, adaptation, refocusing, and selective representation in

the ideological discourse have frequently been classified as a misrepresenta-
tion of events and conditions,104 marking ideological discourse as a whole as
‘untrue’ since it suppresses certain motives and interests to justify certain soci-
etal conditions. Myth, however, constitutes an integral part of the religious
weltanschauung and informs ideology in ancient societies, where it has “the
cultural status of truth in the society or groups to which they belong.”105 As
has been shown by Hans Blumenberg in his monumental Work on Myth,106 this
applies equally to modern societies despite the advance of secular, scientific
rationality. Regarded by its audiences as truthful and meaningful, myth repre-
sents what Eliade called the exemplar history and is sufficiently authoritative
to have paradigmatic value as “simultaneously a ‘model of’ and a ‘model for’
reality.”107 Antonio Gramsci was among the first to suggest that ruling classes
do not only rule “through force and the threat of force but because their ideas
have come to be accepted by the ‘subordinate classes.’”108 In his discussion of
the Karatepe and Çineköy inscriptions, Giovanni Lanfranchi argued persua-
sively that even the elites of tributary states could be staunch supporters of the
Assyrian empire, as they enjoyed material benefits stemming from their posi-
tion in the Assyrian imperial circuit.109 Consent to Assyrian overlordship could
also be expressed from within, by local rulers themselves. Some of these rulers
exalted overtly their alliance with Assyria, as did Bar-rakib of Sam’al, who
proudly declares to have “run at the wheel” of the Assyrian king, thereby fol-
lowing in the footsteps of his father – also an erstwhile ally of the Assyrian
king.110 Furthermore, rulership has always been sanctified and presented in
accordance with the religious weltanschauung. Only upon the disintegration of
the medieval weltanschauung and its attendant institutions did ideology be-
come an object of political debate and philosophical critique.111
Ideology was a central element of the cultural discourse, and it also func-
tioned as an effective source of power (rather than solely as a source of authori-

103 Burke 2006, 128.

104 Ross 2005, 328.
105 Flood 2002, 178.
106 Blumenberg 1985. For a detailed discussion of the relevance of myth to ideological dis-
course, see Chapters Six and Seven; for its relevance to ritual, see Chapter Nine.
107 Lincoln 1989, 24 and Flood 2002, 179.
108 Burke 2004, 25 and Gramsci 1989.
109 Lanfranchi 2007.
110 Zinjirli orthostat of Bar-rakib in Donner and Röllig 1962, no. 216:8‒9 and 1964, 233; Zinjirli
statue of Panamuwa II erected by his son Bar-rakib, ibid., no. 215:6‒7, 10‒14 and 1964, 223‒24;
Lanfranchi 2007, 184.
111 Stentzler 1993, 212‒217.
 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They Intertwine 25

ty) along with economic, political, and military sources.112 Nevertheless, be-
cause of the fact that religion permeated all of these sources of power in an-
tiquity, ideology cannot be understood merely through its function in daily
practice as a regulator and harmonizer of societal actions.113 Instead, in an
“ongoing arena for competition, control of meaning, and the negotiation of
power relationships,”114 ideology – as it materializes in state ceremonies, ritu-
al, monuments, architecture, iconography, and all kinds of textual categories
such as treaties, royal inscriptions, chronicles, and myths – strives equally to
respond to and negotiate the religious weltanschauung, which prescribes a par-
ticular function and meaning for the institution of kingship in the cosmic or-
der.
When defining his notion of the “stream of tradition,” Leo Oppenheim had
the textual evidence of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian libraries in mind.
These libraries demonstrate a striking conservatism in the transmission of texts
such as omen compendia and certain literary texts that originated in the Sume-
ro-Babylonian tradition. Oppenheim assumed this apparent conservatism to be
a consequence of “the desire to preserve a body of religious writings, or the
wish to sustain one tradition against the opposition of, or in competition with,
rival traditions.”115 Oppenheim also stressed the point that in Mesopotamia it
was “considered an essential part of the training of each scribe to copy faithful-
ly the texts that made up the stream of tradition.”116 As has been noted by
Michalowski,117 this purely operative aspect of scribal training implied that the
scribal elites were educated in the stream of tradition, and so could serve the
king in his endeavor to represent himself as the rightful occupant of the throne.
The “relationship between texts, ideology, and political control”118 is crucial to
our understanding of the collaboration between scholars and the king: it re-
veals the authoritative voice of the former in the articulation of independent
visions of social realities in literary compositions not commissioned by the
court. Eventually, many of these compositions would be emulated in royal dis-
course. As such, they serve to illustrate the dynamic interaction between estab-
lished tradition and cultural discourse on the one hand and the ideological
interests of kings at particular historical moments on the other. In this context,

112 Mann 1986.

113 Bourdieu 1977; Bourdieu and Eagleton 1994.
114 DeMarrais, Castillo, and Early 1996, 16.
115 Oppenheim 1960b, 411.
116 Ibid.
117 Michalowski 1987.
118 Cooper 1993, 13 fn. 12.
26 Introduction

it is again interesting to observe that the tradition revolving around the kings
of Akkad seems to have had a much wider dissemination into the north and
the west than the tradition revolving around Gilgamesh.
Oppenheim’s notion of the stream of tradition has recently come under
attack. Eleanor Robson has argued strongly against Oppenheim’s homo-
geneous notion of tradition, referring to mathematical texts and discontinuity
in the use of certain omina series.119 Similar reservations have been advanced
by Niek Veldhuis in his discussion of the transmission of lexical texts, where
he has stated that Oppenheim’s metaphor of a “stream of tradition” “views the
tradition as something more or less independent and with a power of its
own”120 and conceals local variations. It seems to me, however, that Oppen-
heim had something different in mind, focusing much more on ideological
preferences and the manner in which texts were created in the service of the
court, be it in response to political events or as possible patterns of explanation
and orientation, which might be appropriated only much later in time by some
ideological discourse:

When Assyriologists will be able to follow the fate of individual text groups through the
history of their tradition, they will obtain more insights into the workings of this ‘stream’
and, conceivably, light will be shed some day on the ideological preferences and other
attitudes that neither the content nor the wording of these texts is likely to reflect di-
rectly.121

As noted by Jerrold Cooper, many Sumerian myths and epics – among them
the narratives revolving around the legendary kings Enmerkar and Lugalban-
da – did not survive the extensive recreation or re-invention of cultural dis-
course during the Old Babylonian period, while others such as Angimdimma
and Lugal-e did. In addition to the discontinuation of certain texts, there was
also the creation of new Sumerian works and the frequent addition of Akkadi-
an translations,122 although this process in its standardized form was only es-
tablished during the Late Bronze Age as attested by the rich evidence of the
libraries from Aššur, Emar, Nuzi, Boghazköy, Ugarit and Alalakh. There is
clearly an intertextual relationship between Sumero-Babylonian and Assyrian
chronographic texts.123 Moreover, the Assyrian lexical (i.e. educational) and
divinatory corpus is indebted to the Babylonian tradition, and Assyrian literary

119 Robson 2011.

120 Veldhuis 2012, 12.
121 Oppenheim 1960, 412; 1977, 16.
122 Cooper 1971‒72.
123 Weissert 1992.
 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They Intertwine 27

texts reveal signs of Sumero-Babylonian influence. Nevertheless, Assyrian tex-

tual production – particularly royal inscriptions and scholarly texts such as
the earliest version of Astrolabe B124 – remains quite distinct, demonstrating
an increasing professionalism of local scribes and scholars beginning in the
Middle Assyrian period if not earlier. This Assyrian acquisition of expertise in
turn played into scribal training at cities such as Emar125 and Ugarit,126 attest-
ing to an additional, indirect avenue of transmission of Babylonian knowledge
and culture beyond a direct importation from Babylonia into Syria and Anato-
lia.
The various avenues of transmission of Sumero-Babylonian knowledge, as
well as local continuities and discontinuities in the process of its adaptation,
are, however, only one aspect. The other aspect, of particular importance in
this book, is Jerrold Cooper’s notion of textual communities defined by and
through a corpus of shared texts.127 This notion encapsulates perfectly the per-
vasive influence of scribal and scholarly agency in shaping cultural identity
and maintaining cultural stability. It accounts for the perseverance of the
tropes and imagery of combat myth narratives like Lugal-e, Angimdimma, and
the Anzû Myth, the survival of the ideology of Sargonic Akkad in the cultural
memory as expressed in omen compendia and later royal discourse in the Ti-
gridian region, and the inclination of scholars toward intertextuality in the
creation of new texts.
To return to our definition of ideology, it is precisely the perpetual efforts
of individual kings in the ancient Near East to demonstrate their fulfillment of
the expectations of kingship that constituted the primary motivation for the
formulation of the rhetoric of all materialized forms of ideology, be they textu-
al, iconographic, monumental, or ritual. In this endeavor the ruler was guided
by his scholars, who, as is becoming ever clearer from their libraries, represen-
ted the hidden voice128 in the creation of the king’s authority. Although I sub-
scribe to the view that there was no geographically and diachronically unified
way that power was structured and organized in Mesopotamia,129 I still main-
tain that there was an overarching ideological conceptualization of rulership.

124 See Horowitz 2011.

125 See Cohen 2004, 94 mentioning the Assyrian scribe Mar-Šeru’a (Emar 127) and for the
figure of Kidin-Gula originating probably in the Mid-Euphrates region, which shows a mixture
of Assyrian and Babylonian features in the scribal culture.
126 Van Soldt 1991, 522.
127 Cooper 1993, 13; a concept originally developed by the Medievalist Brian Stock.
128 Machinist 2003.
129 Cancik-Kirschbaum 2007, 168.
28 Introduction

Similarly, while ideological expression in Northern Syria and Assyria differed

to a large degree from that of Sumer and Babylonia, these dissimilarities can
be traced to different choices regarding the use of key metaphors from the
cultural repertoire that had developed since the fourth millennium BCE.
This process was already recognized by Hayim Tadmor in the 1970s130 and
dominated his subsequent analyses of royal inscriptions.131 In this he was fol-
lowed by Liverani, who in his seminal article on “The Ideology of the Assyrian
Empire”132 expanded the discussion to include space, time, diversity of men,
and diversity of goods, aspects that he discussed in detail in his monograph
Prestige and Interest. Despite the important contributions of both of these
scholars, numerous Assyriologists continue to read the royal inscriptions prin-
cipally as a source for the reconstruction of an histoire événementielle,133 the
illumination of the dynamics of imperial expansion,134 and the exposition of
the operational aspects of the exercise of imperial power.135 The fact that the
expansionist ambitions of the Assyrian empire and its artistic and architectural
display have been at the center of scholarly interests136 is largely based on
modern scholarship’s understanding of ideology as a means for reinforcing
social hierarchies and norms and legitimizing economic stratification.
This book aims to tell a different story. The focus here is on the king’s use
of tradition in his effort to establish his authority and realize his desire to be
recognized as legitimate by the elites, the gods, and posterity, as well as by his
peers in the international arena. Accordingly, instead of focusing on the top-
down effect of ideology, the goal of this book is to shed light on the intellectual
efforts of the king’s scholars over centuries of Assyrian history to harmonize
tradition and ideology while meeting the historical challenges faced by particu-
lar kings. In his discussion of first millennium Assyrian imperialist ideology,
Mario Liverani emphasizes the fact that religion represents the code underpin-
ning ideology. Liverani is correct to state that religion should not be considered
an additional ideological element in its own right because the supreme god
Aššur is the hypostasis of Assyrian kingship,137 but this view applies only to the

130 Tadmor 1977; later Hayim Tadmor 1997 even argued for legitimately using the term “prop-
aganda,” and while I follow him in the several steps of his argument, I still consider the term
distortive and will avoid it throughout the book.
131 Tadmor 1983; 1997.
132 Liverani 1979.
133 Mayer 1995.
134 Lamprichs 1995; Parker 2001; Yamada 2000.
135 Holloway 2002.
136 Reade 1979a, 1979b. 1980; Russell 1987, 1991, 1999; Winter 1981; 1983; 1997.
137 Liverani 1979, 301.
 Tradition, Cultural Discourse, and Ideology: How They Intertwine 29

imperial claim of the Assyrian kings as visualized during ritual performances

in which the king wore the god Aššur’s tiara.138 Liverani’s position does not,
however, apply to the ideology dominating the operational and executive as-
pects of royal agency, which, as I will discuss in this book, is informed above
all by the Ninurta mythology.
Assyrian cultural discourse can also not be categorized simply as a Meso-
potamian tradition, since Assyria emerges as a distinctive cultural zone in its
interaction with Syrian and Anatolian cultures alike. Locating the various
strands of tradition in Assyrian cultural discourse while simultaneously dem-
onstrating Assyria’s creative power and highly selective formulation of its royal
ideology was one of the major challenges of writing this book. Documenting
Assyria’s construction of its own cultural heritage was further complicated by
Assyria’s frequent exposure to or provocation of migrations and its continuous
cultural interaction with other regions through conquest, trade, and diploma-
cy. Assyria’s geography plays a key role in Assyria’s many cross-cultural inter-
actions, as the city of Aššur began its existence as a hub between east and
west, north and south, with an economic interest in monopolizing interregion-
al exchanges.139
Last but not least, it is necessary to comment on the use of the terms “im-
perial” and “empire.” Assyriologists and non-specialists generally work with a
notion of the ‘classical’ empires of Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia that ties the
idea of empire to a compactness of hegemonic control over a large part of the
ancient Near East as occurred during the first millennium BCE. In response to
the broadening of the term “empire” to include polities such as the empire of
Akkad and the Hittite empire, which do not in fact meet the requirement of vast
territorial control but were administratively decentralized or lacked an imperial
ideology, Mario Liverani suggests that the term be limited to the Neo-Assyrian,
Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid polities, “reverting in fact to the ‘classical’
list as already defined by the ancient (biblical and Classical) authors.”140 Live-
rani covers many of the key characteristics of empire, such as the development
of an expansive and substantial road system with its progressive establishment
of a network of communication, centralized economic and administrative sys-
tems, extensive military capabilities, and the visual materialization of central-
ized power in the royal residences through architecture and state ceremonies.
Beyond these conventional criteria, Liverani repeatedly stresses the impor-
tance of imperial ideology, since “the very same definition of an empire is not

138 See Chapter Nine.

139 On the geography of the Old Assyrian Trade see recently Barjamovic 2008.
140 Liverani 2005, 229.
30 Introduction

so much related to the size of the imperial state (which, as we have seen, can
be quite small, if projected to a world scale), but to the ideological pretension
of universal domain.”141 As imperial claims, however, both the pretension to
universal dominion and the notion of hegemonic control over the entire known
oikoumene were already familiar to the kings of Akkad. “What follows in Meso-
potamian history,” to quote Jean-Daniel Forest, is “nothing but a lengthy varia-
tion around the same theme until the advent of larger empires that went far
beyond the Mesopotamian region.”142 It is therefore impossible to distinguish
the kings of Akkad from certain Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian kings on
the basis of their imperial claims. The fascinating question to pursue is how
and at what historical moment the Assyrians created their own imperial lan-
guage: under which circumstances did Assyrian expansionist politics produce
an imperial language with its own particular ideological variations, what were
its specific characteristics, and how did Assyrian ideological discourse interact
with Assyrian religious tradition on the one hand and with the ideologies of
surrounding polities on the other? To answer this question, a distinction will
be made between the political entity that constituted the Assyrian “empire” of
the first millennium and the “imperial discourse” that informed the expansion-
ist politics of Mesopotamian kings since the Akkad period.

1.5 The Mobility of the Scholars and their Role

at the Royal Courts
The materialization of power in luxury goods and monumental architecture
as signifiers of status and prestige and as vehicles for the communication of
ideological claims addressed to peer polities is clear,143 but this study is pri-
marily text-based. As such, it complements the ground-breaking work of Irene
Winter, Zainab Bahrani, and Julian Reade on the ideological elements inform-
ing the artistic self-representation of Assyrian and earlier kings.144 Although it
is focused on texts – in monumental form, on clay tablets, or as prescriptions
for ritual performances – the central aim of this study is to demonstrate that
texts were the product of the scholars working in the entourage of the king.
Every statement made in a text or performed in ritual regarding the agency of
an individual king or the institution of kingship as a whole represents the hid-

141 Liverani 2005, 232.

142 Forest 2005, 196.
143 Marcus 1996; Feldman 2006; Gunter 2009.
144 Bahrani 2003 and 2008; Winter 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1997; Reade 2005.
 The Mobility of the Scholars and their Role at the Royal Courts 31

den voice of these scholars,145 who crafted ideological responses to the circum-
stances that prevailed at particular historical moments.
Texts were circulated widely while scribes and scholars themselves moved
over significant distances, resulting in a remarkable mobility of knowledge.
This mobility was the foundation not only for intertextual creativity, text cri-
tique, commentary, and textual control, but also for the reinvention of the liter-
ary tradition centered on the figure of the king, as will be discussed at greater
length in Chapter Two. The circulation of texts was further promoted through
the acquisition by Assyrian kings of the private reference libraries of scholars
in conquered cities, a practice attested as early as the 13th century under Tukul-
tī-Ninurta I, who explicitly refers to the seizure of texts from Babylon in the
Tukultī-Ninurta Epic.146 Activities of this kind, documented in the Middle Assyr-
ian period for the kings Tukultī-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I, account for the
presence of Babylonian scholars at the Assyrian court and of bilingual Sumero-
Akkadian copies of Sumerian compositions in Aššur and Nineveh, among them
Angimdimma and Lugale. Other Sumerian texts were also known in Assyria,
“as is proven by the existence of a monolingual tablet containing a few lines
of an Akkadian translation (without the Sumerian original) of the Instructions
of Shuruppak, which was found at Aššur … In fact, the so-called library of Ti-
glath-Pileser I147 contains at least twenty Sumero-Akkadian bilinguals, includ-
ing several emesal compositions, and Nineveh has yielded a handful of Sumeri-
an compositions as well.”148 Indeed, the second half of the second millennium
BCE sees an internationalization of Akkadian literature, which spread to scribal
centers throughout the ancient Near East. Notable examples of this phenom-
enon are Hattuša in Anatolia, Ugarit and Emar in Syria, and Susa in Elam.149
Scholarly mobility could be driven by a number of factors. Of these, the
most important one was the collapse of polities, as this resulted in the disap-
pearance of the palatial institutions that functioned as the larger framework in
which scribal culture existed. Whatever the specific reason for the migration
of scholars, their preeminent role in the process of state formation is truly strik-
ing. By way of illustration, Babylonian scribes worked at the court of Hattuša
precisely during the period when Hittite scribal traditions were being shaped
around 1600 BCE. At this point the Narām-Sîn Epic, one of the narratives re-
garding the Old Akkadian kings that emerged during the Old Babylonian peri-

145 Machinist 2003b.

146 Foster 2005, 315.
147 For the discussion of Tiglath-Pileser’s library see Chapter 6.3.
148 Rubio 2009, 42 with reference to Alster 2005, 48, 207 and Cooper 1971‒72, 1‒2.
149 Rubio 2009, 42‒43.
32 Introduction

od in Mesopotamia, made its way into Anatolia in the form of KBo 19 99.150
The colophon of this tablet is revealing because the text is the product of a
scribe who bore an Anatolian name but was nevertheless of Babylonian origin;
he chose to name both Babylonian and Hittite deities as the patron deities of
his profession as a scholar:

ŠU mHa-ni-ku-i-li DUB.SAR
DUMU dA-nu-LUGAL.DINGIR.MEŠ [D]UB.SAR ˹BAL.BI˺
ÌR dEn-bi-lu-lu ˹dÉ?.A?˺ dNIN?.[MAH]
d
NIN.É.GAL dA-nim dIM ˹d˺[ ]
d
A.MAL dAš-šur dHa-[ ]
d
x [ x ].GAL ù dI-na-ar-x[ ]
na-ra-a[m] d˹Hé?-bat? d˺ [ ]

(By) the hand of Hanikuili, the scribe, son of Anu-šar-ilāni, the scribe, its translator, ser-
vant of Enbilulu, Ea?, Nin[mah?], Belet-ekalli, Anu, Adad, […], A.MAL, Aššur, Ha[…],
[…]gal, and Inar, beloved of Hebat?, […].151

This copy of the Narām-Sîn Epic does not mark the beginning of an independ-
ent Hittite tradition of writing and scholarly education, but rather the begin-
ning of an archival tradition in Hattuša. The cuneiform used by the Hittites
during the reign of Hattušili I (1580‒1550 BCE) is an Old Babylonian form of
writing that is somewhat older than the one used in contemporary Northern
Syria, suggesting that initially Hittite kings relied on foreign scribes. Only in
the 15th century does a distinctively Hittite scholarly scribal tradition appear in
Hattuša.152
The role of the scholars of the Mitanni state continues to be completely
unrecoverable in light of the available evidence, and Mitannian administrative
achievements are primarily recognizable in the integration of particular terms
in the Assyrian language.153 Nonetheless, as I will demonstrate in Chapter 10,
Hurrian cultural discourse as transmitted in the Hittite-Hurrian texts excavated
in the libraries of Boghazköy informed Assyrian state ritual, testifying yet again
to the agency of scholars and scribes in the production and preservation of
cultural memory. At the Assyrian court itself, the formative role of Babylonian
scholars is first apparent in the time of Aššur-uballiṭ I (1353‒1318 BCE), when
we have textual evidence for a Babylonian quarter in Aššur that included a
temple of Marduk, and, in ‘its shadow,’ a house owned by the scribe Marduk-

150 Westenholz 1997.

151 Beckman 1983, 103.
152 Klinger 1998.
153 See Chapter 2.2.
 The Mobility of the Scholars and their Role at the Royal Courts 33

nādin-ahhe, son of Marduk-uballiṭ, grandson of Uššur-ana-Marduk.154 This

scribal family belonged to a Babylonian scribal house whose members served
as high state officials and as administrators of large provinces, exactly the kind
of subjects that the ambitious Assyrian kingdom required.155 In Assyria, Mar-
duk-nādin-ahhe was appointed the ‘scribe of the king’ (ṭupšar šarre), a title
attested only in the Assyrian capital and only once among the 59 scribes
known from the reign of Aššur-uballiṭ. Ninurta-uballissu, ‘scribe of the king’
under Ninurta-apil-ekur (1181‒1169 BCE), trained younger scribes, as is made
clear by the colophons of cultural texts such as lexical lists, incantations, and
mythological texts which refer to his sons or pupils as young scribes (ṭupšarru
ṣeḫru).156 It thus appears that during the Middle Assyrian period the title ‘scribe
of the king’ was the predecessor for the title ‘scholar’ (ummânu) of the king,
which is attested for the first time under Ašarēd-apil-Ekur (1075‒1074 BCE).
Although it is a historiographic text, the Tukultī Ninurta Epic, celebrating the
king’s victory over Babylon, mentions collections of tablets brought back from
the libraries of Babylonia and thus supports the impression conveyed by the
sparse evidence mentioned above for the active building of collections of cul-
tural texts. The first archaeological evidence for such Middle Assyrian libraries
stems from various find spots located in the Aššur temple and the Anu-Adad
temple.157 Their value as cultural texts is highlighted by the fact that those
found in the Aššur temple were mixed with tablets from a Neo-Assyrian library,
indicating a clear interest in preserving collections that might originally have
been put together by various different experts.
The findspot in the Anu-Adad temple yielded a large number of Middle
Assyrian lexical texts, regulations regarding palace and harem life, Middle As-
syrian laws, royal rituals (among them the coronation ritual), hymns, mythical
texts, incantations, medical prescriptions, and texts concerning the treatment
of horses, the manufacture of perfumes, mathematics, astronomy, and astrolo-
gy. “Several of the tablets were written by the brothers Marduk-balāssu-ēriš
and Bēl-ahha-iddina from a family of scribes, during the decades before the
reign of Tiglath-Pileser I, around the middle of the twelfth century BC.”158 It is
not clear whether these tablets originally belonged to various private libraries.
Another collection of Middle Assyrian tablets has been unearthed in the
western corner of the Old Palace. These tablets are remnants of a library that

154 Wiggermann 2008, 203.

155 Wiggermann 2008, 205 with text no. 3 and 207.
156 Jakob 2003, 256 ff.
157 Maul 2003.
158 Pedersén 1998, 83.
34 Introduction

probably belonged to exorcists in the service of the king. They represent five
tablets that are all listed in the Exorcist’s Manual, the first millennium curricu-
lum for aspiring exorcists. The famous sage and scholar Esagil-kīn-apli, who
served the Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar I and Adad-apla-iddina (12th and
11th century BCE respectively), is named in the Exorcist’s Manual as its compi-
ler. Accordingly, the Middle Assyrian texts found in the Middle Assyrian palace
speak in favor of dating the origin of the manual back to the end of the second
millennium BCE,159 and signal still further the exorcists’ involvement in pala-
tial affairs.
To fully understand the role of these intellectuals and experts, it is essen-
tial to distinguish between the highly trained scholars whose education encom-
passed the various disciplines of exorcism, astrology and astronomy,160 the
performance of the cult, and extispicy, and whose broad education is evident
in their comprehensive private libraries, and the lower-level practitioners of
the same disciplines. Leading scholars served as the chiefs (rabi) of different
groups of experts employed at the royal court,161 and their libraries indicate
systematic research, the compilation of texts, textual production, and the edu-
cation of apprentice scholars. Modern scholarship should therefore avoid the
strict distinction between a “research” and an “educational” milieu.
The social role of leading scholars consisted of fashioning a weltanschau-
ung that reinforced societal hierarchies and legitimized royal authority. Upon
the perfection of the sciences of divination in the first millennium, “we are
dealing with a sophisticated, well organized and comprehensive system of
thought that had largely grown out of the necessity to advise and protect the
king in his capacity as the god’s earthly representative. It could not have devel-
oped as it did without this sort of background.”162 This book will demonstrate

159 Maul 2003, 182; of the five tablets found in the Old Assyrian Palace, the first text seems
to have been part of a series with the title “To purify the pen of cows, bulls, sheep and horses,”
(Geller 2000, 248 l. 24); the second tablet formed part of the series of the Mouth Washing ritual
normally performed on a statue or cultic object dedicated to the cult of a divinity (Geller 2000,
244 l. 11). The third tablet belongs to the “(mourning) of the month Dumuzi” also mentioned
in the Exorcist’s Manual (Geller 2000 244 l. 5); the fourth tablet belongs to the Series “To undo
a curse” (NAM.ÉRIM.BÚR.RU.DA, Geller 2000, 244 l. 12); and the fifth tablet dealing with dry
rot affecting a house belongs to the series of the Namburbi Rituals “warding off an evil” (Geller
2000, 248 l. 29).
160 On the relationship between the two disciplines which in modern times are split into two
categories with completely different connotations, one being considered a progressive science,
the other as pure superstition, see Parpola 1993a, 47.
161 Parpola 1993a, 52.
162 Parpola 1993a, 56.
 The Mobility of the Scholars and their Role at the Royal Courts 35

that such complexity can indeed be traced back much further in time. Further,
it will establish that the great achievement of first millennium Assyrian ideo-
logical discourse lies in the sophisticated integration of all media to produce a
coherent and persuasive royal image that could be reproduced in any context,
where one element of this discourse could trigger the entire narrative of power
in the mind of its audience.
Within the political, bureaucratic, and religious social strata of ancient
Near Eastern society, leading scholars can be regarded as the “intellectuals” of
their time; they shaped the weltanschauung and the perception of the king’s
body politic, compiled the religious, historical, juridical and lexical knowledge,
expounded ritual and religious texts, and determined the thought patterns for
the ideological education of the bureaucratic elite. As such, scholars acted not
only as the ideological custodians of the central institutions of temple and pal-
ace. Rather, by reaffirming, transmitting, and modifying inherited social, cul-
tural, and political traditions, scholars also fulfilled authoritative and power-
exercising functions on the higher levels of state administration. They acted as
personal agents, counselors, and tutors to the crown prince and king and their
advice was sought perpetually in all state affairs. Hence, beyond formulating
the ideological basis for royal authority, scholars were also directly involved in
the exercise of authority in ways that reached beyond their particular skills
and expertise as astrologer, exorcist, and diviner.
The sensitive relationship between the king and his scholars is evident in
Assyrian royal inscriptions and letters. These shed light on the efforts of kings
to maintain absolute superiority in decision-making. Despite the fact that lead-
ing scholars acted as personal counselors to the king and were crucial to the
ideological operation of empire, even “those lucky scholars … were by no
means freed of economic worries.”163 They were not paid regularly but lived
from occasional and regular(?) gifts and the leftovers (rīhātu) of the king’s ta-
ble. Urad-Gula, for example, started his career as a “deputy of the ‘Chief Physi-
cian’ under Sennacherib (…, 681 B.C.), continued as a court exorcist under Es-
arhaddon (…) but lost his position at court after the accession of Ashurbani-
pal,”164 as indicated by one of his letters:
13
May the king (=Ashurbanipal),165 my lord heed the case of his servant, let the king see
the whole situation! Initially, in (the days of) the king’s father (=Esarhaddon), I was a
poor man, son of a poor man, a dead dog, a vile and limited person. He lifted me up from

163 Parpola 1987.

164 Parpola 1987, 269 with references.
165 My added explanation for the reader.
36 Introduction

the dung heap; I got to receive gifts from him, and my name was mentioned among men
of good fortune. I used to enjoy generous ‘leftovers’; intermittently, he used to give me a
mule [or] an ox, and yearly I earned a mina or two of silver.
19
[In the days] of my lord’s crownprincehood I received ‘leftovers’ with your exorcists; I
stood [at] the window openings, keeping watch; all the days that I spent in his service I
guarded his privileges, I did not enter the house of a eunuch (lúSAG) or a courtier (ša
ziqni = private quarters of the palace) without his permission. I was looked upon as one
who eats lion’s morsels, I appeased your god. Now, following his father, the king has
added to the good name he had established, but I have not been treated in accordance
with my deeds; I have suffered as never before, and given up the ghost.
…
31
If it is befitting that first-ranking scholars and (their) assistants receive mules, (surely)
I should be granted one donkey; like[wise], (as) oxen are apportioned in Tebet (X), I too
should […] one ox!
34
Two or three times within a month three to four [… are give]n to […];
35
[even … an ap]prentice [of the] assistant [… ge]ts […. And] enjoys [a sh]eep [……]; but
[me], [what (compensation) do I d]raw, or for what pur[pose do I w]ork?166

Scribal complaints are numerous. Thus the chief diviner complains to the king:
6
The father of the king, my lord, gave me 10 homers of cultivated land in Hallahu. For
14 years I had the usufruct of the land, and nobody disputed it with me. (But) now the
governor of Barhalzi has come and mistreated the farmer, plundered his house and appro-
priated my land.
17
The king, my lord, knows that I am a poor man, that I keep the watch of the king, my
lord, and am guilty of no negligence within the palace. Now I have been deprived of my
field. I have turned to the king: may the king do me justice, may I not die of hunger!167

Towards the end of the eighth century BCE, the Assyrian palace was the only
institution apart from the temples that was able to support scribes on a long-
term basis. For this reason, Babylonian scribes are attested either at the Assyri-
an court or acting on behalf of the Assyrian king in their home towns.168

1.6 The Scholars’ Literary Production at the Assyrian Court

Let us return to the question of innovation and tradition and Assyria’s role in
the production of a cultural discourse that was posed at the beginning of this
chapter. A key factor for understanding the tension between the two is that
scholarly knowledge and texts were understood, like the institution of kingship

166 SAA 10 294.

167 SAA 10 173.
168 Fincke 2003/2004, 116.
 The Scholars’ Literary Production at the Assyrian Court 37

itself, to have originated in the divine realm. Any innovation or alteration

would thus be perceived as a threat to the cosmic plan originally laid out by
the gods. The challenge in writing or reconstructing any cultural history is to
delineate and illuminate precisely this tension between a culture’s overt welt-
anschauung, its actual social-political realization, and the retrospective textu-
alization of the latter.
A key point made by Eisenstadt 169 is that creativity and innovation within a
cultural discourse can only thrive on the foundations of a long-lived tradition.
Accordingly, our specific concern with the discourse of royal ideology requires
an understanding of the perpetual reconceptualization or reinvention of tradi-
tion as “variations upon received themes” rather than as products of originali-
ty.170 Tradition accounts for the longevity of certain themes over vast chrono-
logical and geographical expanses. In the particular case of Assyrian ideologi-
cal discourse, tradition also accounts for the fluidity and intertextuality of
texts, which resulted in the creation of new text genres revolving around the
figure of the king, namely the royal hymns and royal epics of the Middle Assyri-
an period and the letters of gods and royal reports to Aššur of the Neo-Assyrian
period. Idioms in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic reveal not only close intertextual
links with the language of treaties and diplomacy, with penitential psalms and
laments, with hymns and royal inscriptions, and with heroic tales,171 but also
anticipate the major themes of much later Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions. Sar-
gon II’s Eighth Campaign to Urartu “is remarkable for its long, complicated
sentences, elaborate style, intricate figures of speech, and its grandiose con-
ception.”172 Both Sargon II’s building account of a palace in his new residence
at Khorsabad 173 and Sennacherib’s report of the battle at Halule174 draw on the
language and imagery of Enūma Eliš and other myths, epics, heroic poems,
and former royal inscriptions. The intertextual connections between the Myth
of the Creation of Man and God and Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn are evi-
dent, while a section of Esarhaddon’s Apology likewise reads as a reformula-
tion of the same myth.175 Although royal inscriptions were concerned primarily
with demonstrating that the king had met the expectations of royal office – i.e,
that as the steward of the god Aššur the king had secured the social and cosmic

169 Eisenstadt 1986 and 1992.

170 Greenblatt 2005, 15.
171 Foster 2005, 298.
172 Foster 2007, 91.
173 Van de Mieroop 1999c and Chapter 4.6.
174 Weissert 1997.
175 RINAP 4 no. 1 ii 30‒39 and for the myth see Chapter 5.3.
38 Introduction

order and expanded the borders of Assyria – the royal reports to the gods and
letter of the gods to the king served to sanctify royal deeds, which involved
sacrileges such as fratricide, parricide, and the destruction of the main sanctu-
ary of the enemy.176 Despite their intertextual links with the royal inscriptions,
then, royal reports to the gods and letter of the gods to the king must be seen
in light of their particular function of sanctifying the king’s deeds.
The Sumero-Babylonian impact on Assyrian culture was immense, as is
clear from the fact that all official literature was basically written in Babylonian
literary dialects and that the Assyrian pantheon was permeated by divinities
of Sumero-Babylonian origin. Nevertheless, the Assyrians were self-conscious
and creative in their adaptation of Sumero-Babylonian traditions and in their
own cultural production. Assyrian particularism is evident in the continuity of
certain elements within Assyrian ideological discourse, “despite its various
twists and turns.”177 This is especially true with regard to the Assyrian endeav-
or to exalt Aššur over the Babylonian god Marduk, first as the “Assyrian Enlil”
under Tukultī-Ninurta I and then through Aššur’s equation with the ancestor
god AN.ŠÁR in the Assyrian version of Enūma Eliš under Sennacherib. Beyond
this theological discourse revolving around the supreme divinity of Assyria,
the mythology of the warrior god Ninurta and the king’s fulfillment of the role
of Ninurta served as the most relevant mythological framework for the royal
inscriptions and royal ideology in general (see Chapters Six and Seven). All of
these text categories ultimately emphasize divine legitimation and divine sup-
port. While the institution of kingship was never questioned, individual mon-
archs went to great lengths to justify their occupation of the throne.

1.7 Approaches and Method

Inspired by what Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht once called the “presence effects and
meaning effects,”178 – i.e. presencing as a practice of producing interpretation
and meaning – this book intends to investigate the “materialities of communi-
cation”179 in Assyria by considering Assyrian material culture and texts in
terms of both their sign value and their practical value in a system of agency.180
While for Gumbrecht the two dimensions of experience and interpretation re-

176 See lastly Pongratz-Leisten 1999.

177 Machinist 1984‒85, 361.
178 Gumbrecht 2004.
179 Gumbrecht 2004, 11 and 2012.
180 Warnier 2006, 187.
 Approaches and Method 39

main incongruous, I follow the notion of “experiential realism,” or experiental-

ism as developed in the field of cognitive linguistics.181 In this view, bodily
experience has a decisive impact on linguistic encoding and provides the basis
for the construction of language.182 From the perspective of cognitive linguis-
tics it is the common experience and the cultural memory of a community that
allows for the production of meaning. Accordingly, I explore how religion and
weltanschauung translated into the ideological discourse of the Assyrian kings
and were mediated in text, image, and ritual. While visual media will occasion-
ally be discussed, the primary focus in this study is on the media of text and
ritual and their impact on and negotiation of a complex of meanings that in-
formed Assyrian royal ideology.183 As such, I investigate the ideological strate-
gies for the integration of religious and political elites and their interests and
activities into the organizational system of the monarchical power structure.
This book does not adhere to or derive from any single “school of thought.”
Some major trends have, however, had an impact on my work in recent years.
One of these is the attempt of Stephen Greenblatt’s school of New Historicism
to regard text in the larger sense of discourse and institutions, rather than
distinguishing rigidly between what lies within the text and what lies out-
side:184 any cultural product, then, is seen as “accumulation, transformation,
representation, and communication of social energies and practices.”185 Fur-
ther, the works of Hayden White,186 Wolfgang Iser,187 Reinhart Koselleck,188
and Jörn Rüsen189 have been crucial for defining my approach to how to read
ancient royal discourse in light of the modern truth claim. Their work has also
helped clarify for me how ancient royal discourse should be situated within
its respective historical context and in relation to the conceptual constructs
determined by religion and weltanschauung.190 The works of Hans Blumen-
berg,191 Walter Burkert,192 and Gerard Genette193 have, in turn, been invaluable

181 Lakoff and Johnson 1980.

182 Drewer 2003. For a constructive critique of Gumbrecht’s approach arguing to combine
both these dimensions see Kreyer 2012.
183 Gumbrecht 2004, 11.
184 Greenblatt 1990.
185 Greenblatt 1990, 15.
186 White 1973 and 1999.
187 Iser 1993.
188 Koselleck 1979 transl. 2004.
189 Rüsen 2005
190 Hume 1999.
191 Blumenberg 1985.
192 Burkert 1982.
193 Genette 1997.
40 Introduction

in the formulation of my thoughts on the intertextual connections between

royal inscriptions and mythic texts and heroic poems. Their work has also been
useful in establishing that myth should be conceptualized as an analytical cat-
egory and referential system rather than as a primitive way of thought.
Informed by Bruce Lincoln’s definition of religion, this book investigates
all four of religion’s domains – discourse, practice, community, and institu-
tion194 – and seeks to reveal the dynamics between religion and ideological
discourse, between the persistence of tradition on the one hand and innovation
or modification in ever-changing circumstances on the other.195
Approaches in cognitive religion196 and in anthropological theory of art 197
have also proven fruitful in identifying the character of the agency of the sec-
ondary agents of the king.198 These secondary agents, among them the royal
insignia, the royal statue, the royal garments, and the divine tiara of Aššur,
emerge as extremely powerful agents during ritual performances and in the
imagery of royal steles and reliefs, serving to manifest the king’s permanent
presence throughout the territories he sought to control.
Finally, I must stress that this book, although diachronic in its approach,
does not intend to be exhaustive in any way. Rather, the emphasis is on analyz-
ing certain cultural strategies and key metaphors or literary tropes to convey a
sense of the malleability, as well as the continuity and discontinuity, of tradi-
tion in Mesopotamia in general and Assyria in particular. To that end, this
study will exploit every manner of source in order to assess the notion of ruler-
ship as it developed over the course of Mesopotamian history and to decode
the ideological discourse produced in Assyria during the second and first mil-
lennia BCE. Additionally, it is hoped that this book will also sensitize the reader
to the fact that our modern periodizations and our thinking in terms of ethnici-
ties and political borders serves to hamper rather than to advance our under-
standing of the vital moments of change and re-invention of Mesopotamian
tradition.
Assyria represents an ideal object of study in two respects: 1. for investigat-
ing the dynamics between religion, tradition, and ideological discourse, and 2.
for exploring the dynamics of ancient Mesopotamian cultural discourse, since
Assyria’s constant exposure to surrounding civilizations and to the various cul-

194 Lincoln 2006, 5 ff.

195 Burke 1997 and 2004.
196 Boyer 1994, 2001; Tremlin 2006.
197 Gell 1998; Osborne and Tanner 2007.
198 On the notion of secondary agents as part of divine agency see Pongratz-Leisten 2011a,
140‒152 and Chapter 9.7.
 Approaches and Method 41

tural groups within its territory is evident in every medium of its cultural pro-
duction. By treating the Sumero-Babylonian and the Syro-Anatolian spheres
equally, I will go beyond the concept of a “Greater Mesopotamia” as it has been
developed in scholarship to date; so far, modern scholarship has incorporated
only the Hābūr triangle and Western Syria into its larger picture.199 However,
the royal vision of Assyria shows the impact of a much broader geographic
range, entirely consistent with its aspirations to universal rule. It is to this
range of cultures and traditions that I now turn.

199 Buccellati & Kelly-Buccellati 1980, 1‒2; Charpin 2004, 30.

2 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and
Traditions in Mesopotamia and the Rise
of Assyrian Cultural Discourse
2.1 Preliminary Remarks: Studying Aššur’s Early Beginnings
Reconstituting the weltanschauung of ancient Assyrian monarchy is complicat-
ed both by the frustrating shortage of primary sources and by the skeptical
attitude of some scholars, who assign great importance to gaps in transmission
and to the scarcity of sources allowing direct historical reconstruction. There
is certainly a dearth of written sources for the early history of Aššur. Never-
theless, the origins of Assyrian royal ideology can be discerned already in the
third millennium on the basis of archaeological evidence from the Early Dynas-
tic period and inscriptions from the ensuing Old Akkadian (ca. 2340‒2120 BCE)
and Ur III periods (ca. 2119‒2000 BCE). Consequently, I would like to begin this
study by establishing the contours of Assyrian royal discourse as it existed
before the Old Babylonian period, i.e. before the reign of Šamšī-Adad I, who is
well known for his commemorative inscriptions and building activities in Aš-
šur, and, although not of Assyrian origin, was a pivotal figure in the formula-
tion of the key metaphors of Assyrian royal ideology.
Granting Aššur space for a cultural discourse of its own as early as the end
of the third millennium BCE requires a substantial rethinking of our paradigms
of what the term ‘local’ signifies and what exactly the ‘predominant’ culture of
Sumer constitutes. We need to carefully consider the intercultural dynamics
that operated between the Upper Tigris and Upper Euphrates regions and
southern Mesopotamia,1 including the northern Syrian, Hurrian, Akkadian,
and Sumerian traditions. We must be aware that ethno-linguistic terms are of
limited value when attempting to define an ideological discourse that was
shaped by the presence and under the influence of a multitude of cultures.2
Movement and interaction of peoples along trade routes had shaped the cul-
tures of the ancient Near East for thousands of years before the appearance of
written texts. As Gil Stein writes, “of the many trade networks that have so far
been traced, the oldest is the so-called Piedmont route, which runs along the
foothills of the Zagros and Taurus range and connects Elam with north Syria

1 Recent excavations at Urkeš (www.urkesh.org), Tell Brak, Tell Beydar and Tell Huēra have
completely changed the picture; see further Frangipane 1993; Stein 1999, 112‒116.
2 For this discussion with regard to Sumer and Akkad see Postgate 1994; Matthews 1997; Stein
2001.
 Preliminary Remarks: Studying Aššur’s Early Beginnings 43

and Southeast Turkey. The obsidian trade accounts for early cultural exchange
between the Zagros and Taurus mountains … Later, the Zagros played a central
role in the westward distribution of raw materials such as lapis lazuli and a
nickel-rich arsenic copper, which began during the late Ubaid period and
peaked during the late Uruk period.”3 It is probably along this trade route that
Sumerians and later Hurrians originating in the regions of Armenia infiltrated
the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia. Although this route did not directly incorpo-
rate the city of Aššur, it did pass through Nineveh.
Aššur’s ideological discourse developed in the context of cultural interac-
tion between north and south that dated back at least to the Uruk Period.
Archaeological evidence demonstrating the development of organizational
structures and ideological elements in the northern regions that were similar
to those known from southern Mesopotamia,4 however, underlines the necessi-
ty for a reconsideration of “the colonial phenomenon” of the Uruk expansion.
This expansion appears to have been more limited than previously thought; it
followed the course of the Tigris and the Euphrates and only partially involved
the northern region as a whole. Local centers seem to have largely taken over
the management of trade by expanding their control over the circulation of
primary products towards the end of the Uruk period and in subsequent de-
cades, as demonstrated by evidence from Arslantepe and Tell Brak.5 Conse-
quently, archaeologists have reacted against the Sumerian paradigm, i.e. the
view that Sumerian culture was predominant, retaining instead a “neutral atti-
tude vis-à-vis geographical predominance of one area over another.”6 Be that
as it may, visual and later textual media demonstrate that essential tropes
linked with the office of kingship were developed in the highly stratified and
socially diversified society of the ancient city of Uruk during the Uruk IV
(3500‒3200) and Djemdat Nasr periods (3200‒2900 BCE). These tropes became
the cornerstones of Mesopotamian royal tradition and were reiterated and re-
formulated in various regions and periods throughout the entire history of the
ancient Near East.
Further, discoveries regarding the early urban culture of the Hurrians in
Urkeš7 – situated at the foothills of the Ṭur-ʿAbdin – point to the existence of
yet another cultural horizon, namely that of the Hurrians. Recent excavations

3 Stein 2001, 159.

4 Frangipane 1993, 153.
5 Frangipane 1993, 159.
6 Buccellati/Kelly-Buccellati p. 11. I would like to thank both Marily-Kelly-Buccellati and Gior-
gio Buccellati for generously sharing their research with me before publication.
7 For the publications of the excavations see www.urkesh.org.
44 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

in Urkeš suggest that Hurrian culture co-existed with Sumerian culture while
retaining its distinctiveness as a northern urban tradition.8 These excavations
also correct the idea that there was a period of ruralization in northern Syria
during the second half of the third millennium,9 as the monumental temple
terrace in Urkeš can be safely dated to the Uruk period and has much in com-
mon with the temple terrace in Tell Huēra.10 During the Akkad period at the
latest, the “Khabur triangle was already dotted with Hurrian towns … and the
process of state formation was well under way, while further north, the miner-
al-rich region of eastern Turkey and southern Armenia (the “Upper Lands”),
whence the Hurrians presumably came, was politically more advanced still.”11
By the Ur III period the Hurrian presence extended from the Zagros Mountains
through to Ṭur-ʿAbdin, and from Subartu towards Ebla. This presence had a
major impact on political and cultural life in the polities of Upper Mesopota-
mia.12
Eva von Dassow has discussed the phenomenon of “Hurrianization,” i.e.
the spread of Hurrian language and Hurrian people in northern Mesopotamia
and Syria during the late third and the second Millennium BCE,13 positing that

most likely the land and language were called Ḫurri and ‘Hurrian’ after the self-designa-
tion of a population inhabiting that area and speaking that language, though the applica-
tion of the designation ‘Hurrian’ to people is not attested until the mid-second millenni-
um. In other words, it may be posited that the name Ḫurri (and its derivatives) originated
from the designation of a particular group of people, putatively an ethnic group, and that
this people’s designation was then applied to their land and language. It does not follow,
even if Hurrian did originally denote an ethnic group, that the subsequent spread of the
Hurrian language testifies to the multiplication and spread of ethnically Hurrian people.
The increase in evidence for the use of Hurrian language, in onomastics, borrowed lex-
emes in other languages, the writing of texts in Hurrian, and so forth, during the time
frame indicated above, may in part be just that, an increase in evidence, while in part it
may be attributed to acculturation.14

Although I agree that onomastic choices and the use of a particular language
do not necessarily indicate a particular ethnic identity and can instead be at-

8 G. Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati, “… Nor North: The Urkesh Temple Terrace” manuscript
p. 12
9 Akkermans/Schwartz 2003, 210.
10 Buccellati/Kelly-Buccellati 2009, 66. While earlier dating reached back into the ED III peri-
od, Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati told me in a conversation that the terrace
can now be dated to the Uruk period, June 2nd 2011.
11 Stein 2001, 153 f. with reference to Steinkeller 1998, 94‒96.
12 Dolce 1999; Archi 2013.
13 von Dassow 2008, 68‒90.
14 von Dassow 71 f.
 Preliminary Remarks: Studying Aššur’s Early Beginnings 45

tributed to acculturation, there did exist bureaucratic traditions, myths, and

ritual practices that – in addition to being written in Hurrian – are specifically
designated as “Hurrian” by other ethnic groups. Hurrian divinities served as
carriers of a Hurrian identity, but were also adopted and adapted by Hittite
and Assyrian cults. In other words, while any cultural practice can in theory
be the product of acculturation, the fact that it is associated with a particular
ethnic identity presupposes the existence of such an identity at some point in
history. In our particular case, there is a clearly discernible notion of a distinct-
ly Hurrian tradition within the Mesopotamian weltanschauung. Throughout
this study I will return to the importance of Hurrian cultural discourse for un-
derstanding some of the choices made by Assyrian kings with regard to their
presentation of royal ideology through the media of text, image, and ritual.
Equally important to cultural developments in the north was the rapid po-
litical expansion of the city state of Kīš during the Early Dynastic period I. The
notion of a strong ‘Kišite Tradition’ reflecting the political power and cultural
importance of Kīš was first advanced by Ignace Gelb15 and has gained further
traction on account of an alabaster plaque discussed recently by Piotr Steinkel-
ler.16 This plaque – which clearly has ceremonial purpose – lists large numbers
of people of cities that were taken by Kīš in the course of its territorial con-
quests. These included cities in northern Babylonia, the Diyala region, what
later became Assyria, and the trans-Tigridian territories.17 It is still unclear
whether Kīš exercised control over all these areas. The numbers are unusually
high, and rather than representing a list of prisoners as suggested by Piotr
Steinkeller, it could also be one of the first census lists to exercise control over
people who could potentially be levied for major irrigation work and building
projects. It was during this time that the title ‘King of Kīš’ became so presti-
gious that it acquired the meaning ‘king of totality.’ During the Early Dynastic
period Sumerian cuneiform was adopted by the scribal circles of Kīš, who
“modified it quite significantly by introducing new signs and creating new
phonetic values. The use of the Kišite cuneiform spread throughout northern
Babylonia, eventually reaching Mari, the Hābūr triangle (Tell Beydar), northern
Syria (Ebla), and probably many of the places affected by the expansion of Kīš
as well.”18 Moreover, in Kīš it is possible to see the development of an economy
in which the palace and private households played a dominant role, in contrast
to the south where communal temple households were the norm. As Piotr

15 Gelb 1977.
16 Steinkeller 2013.
17 Steinkeller 2013, 142.
18 Steinkeller 2013, 147.
46 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Steinkeller notes, the proto-Akkadian society of Kīš was markedly different

from that of its southern counterparts, characterized “by a strong presence of
tribal organization and the importance of lineages. In accordance with that,
the northern kingship was based on descent, unlike that of southern Babylo-
nia, which was (at least in theory) elective, with the ruler being an earthly
representative (vicar) of the deity, who was the real owner and master of the
city state.”19
The eastern Tigridian area around Ešnunna is another distinct cultural cen-
ter important to the development of Assyrian royal ideology. During the Old
Akkadian period and afterwards, this region developed its own ideological dis-
course – one that has much in common with Nineveh and Aššur on the one
hand and Lagaš on the other. With regard to the textual evidence, much atten-
tion has been paid to the paleographic distinctions that characterize the cunei-
form writing system of the eastern Tigridian area and to the use of lexical texts
in its scribal curriculum,20 but no such paradigm has yet been formulated for
eastern Tigridian cultural discourse. While the city of Ešnunna is generally
considered Old Babylonian by Mari specialists,21 use of eastern Tigridian or-
thography in its texts links the city with the Old Akkadian and Old Assyrian
horizons,22 i.e. the northern Mesopotamian sphere. Accordingly, much atten-
tion will be paid to Ešnunna’s cultural discourse and to its interaction with
Aššur in order to demonstrate the existence of a particular Tigridian discourse
that incorporated a combination of Hurrian, Sumero-Babylonian, and northern
Akkadian/Assyrian elements.
As a first step, I discuss the spread of cuneiform writing and scholarly
knowledge from southern Mesopotamia in this chapter, and investigate what
the dissemination of cuneiform culture implied for the development of typical-
ly northern forms of royal ideology. I will discuss the early development of
Aššur’s own ideological discourse in Chapter Three. My ultimate goal is to dem-
onstrate that the cultural discourse developed in the Tigridian and northern
Syrian regions emerged in response to the expansionist empire of Akkad. Al-
though this discourse absorbed some elements of imperial Akkadian ideology,
it was also formulated and adapted to suit local needs and interests. The ten-
sions outlined here, then, are not merely geographical, dividing between the
South and the North, but also cultural, differentiating between use of the cune-

19 Steinkeller 2013, 147.

20 See below.
21 Charpin and Ziegler 2003.
22 Whiting 1987.
 North-South Interaction and the Syro-Anatolian Impact on Assyrian Culture 47

iform writing system, the inferred transfer of Sumerian tradition, and indige-
nous cultural expression.

2.2 North-South Interaction and the Syro-Anatolian Impact

on Assyrian Culture
Southern and northern Mesopotamia were closely linked historically through
intense intercultural contact that included trade, warfare, diplomatic intermar-
riage, and mutual assistance in times of trouble. The two regions differed, how-
ever, not only in their languages and in the traditions that determined the
particular choices they made with regard to their cultural and ideological dis-
course, but also in their ecological and economic conditions.23 Northern Meso-
potamia sits in the eastern part of the ‘Fertile Crescent’ that stretches from
Palestine through northern Syria and northern Mesopotamia to south-east Iran,
and is thus part of the dry-farming zone. In contrast, the flat alluvial plain of
southern Mesopotamia depends on artificial irrigation, which helps account
for why settlements first appeared later in the south than in the north. The rise
of urban centers in the south emphasized social stratification, labor specializa-
tion, and technological innovation in tandem with the invention and develop-
ment of writing.24 While it is true that in later times certain Assyrian kings
made a concerted effort to collect the body of cultural texts from Babylonia
and build universal libraries housed in royal palaces,25 Assyrian culture, on
both its operational and ideological levels, exhibits a range of strategies that
link it as much with the Syro-Anatolian and the eastern Tigridian cultural hori-
zons as with the Sumero-Babylonian tradition of southern Mesopotamia.
Cultural interaction between Assyria and the Syro-Anatolian and eastern
Tigridian cultural horizons has mainly been investigated with regard to the
figurative language of visual images.26 There are nevertheless numerous other
instances of common cultural features and practices. The eponym dating sys-
tem, for instance, was probably introduced to Mari by Šamšī-Adad I following
his conquest of Aššur. Like Inanna in southern Mesopotamia, the goddess

23 Galter 2007.
24 Cooper 1989; Glassner 2003; Liverani 2006; see Green 1981 and Powell 1981.
25 For its ideological expression see the two almost identical copies of a letter probably writ-
ten by Ashurbanipal asking the governor of Borsippa to collect all kinds of literary and scholar-
ly tablets in Babylonian collections for inclusion in the palace libraries with the help of Ashur-
banipal’s scholars, BM 25676 and BM 25678, CT 22 1, see Lieberman 1990.
26 Opificius 1964; Mayer Opificius 1984; Winter 1982; Matthiae 1989.
48 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Ištar-Šauška of Nineveh seems to have fulfilled a key function in the empower-

ment of the king through the divine world. Ištar-Šauška assumed such a role
by the Akkadian period if not earlier, and rose to the top of the Hurrian panthe-
on at the side of Teššub during the second Millennium BCE, subsequently be-
coming an essential figure for both Hittite and Neo-Assyrian kingship.27 With
regard to royal titulary, the adoption of the title ‘sun’ for the king is particularly
interesting. Hitherto considered an adoption from Babylonia, the title was al-
ready used by a king from Nagar/Tell Brak in northern Syria following Sargonic
control over the region. This early use of the title was probably related to its
use by the kings of the Ur III period.28 Still another instance of common cultur-
al practice is the inclusion of natural phenomena as divine witnesses to treat-
ies, a characteristic of supra-regional and international law in the Syro-Anatoli-
an realm that resurfaces in the Assyrian tākultu-ritual.29 Cross-cultural fertiliza-
tion resulting from interaction between Hurrians, Hittites, and Assyrians is also
apparent in a Hittite prayer within a ritual text that is addressed to the goddess
Ištar. This prayer invokes Ištar’s hypostases as they exist not only in all the
cult centers of Hatti and in the cities of Syria, but also as they exist in Aššur
and Nineveh, the latter appearing at the very top of the list:

§ 4 […] He says as follows “… O Ištar […] I will keep […]ing and for you … [If you are in
Nineveh] then come from Nineveh. (But?) if you are [in] R[imuši, then come from Rimuši].
If you are in Dunta, then come from Du[nta].
§ 5 (O Ištar, [if you are] in [Mittanni], then come from Mitanni. [If you are in …, then
come from … If you are in Dunippa then [come frome] Duni[ppa, if you are in Ugarit] then
com[e] from Ugarit, …Alalhaz, …Amurra, …Zīduna, …Nuḫašša, …Kulzila, …Zunzurḫa,
…Aššur, …Kašga, …Alašiya, …Ālziya, …Papanḫa, …Ammaḫa, …Karkiya, …Arzauwa,
…Maša, …Kuntara, …Ura, …Luḫma, …Partaḫuina, …Kašula, …
§ 6 If (you are) in the rivers and streams [then come from there]. If for the cowherd and
shepherds [you …] and (you are) among them, then come away. If (you are) among [the
…], if you are with the Sun Goddess of the Earth and the Primor[dial Gods], then come
from those.
§ 7 Come away from these countries. For the king, the queen (and) the princes bring
life, health, streng[th], longevity, contentment?, obedience (and) vigor, (and) to the land
of hatti growth of crops (lit., grain), vines, cattle, sheep (and) humans, šalḫitti-, manitti-
and annari-.30
…

27 Beckman 1998; Meinhold 2009, 168 ff.

28 Inscription of the Hurrian king Talpuš-atili from Tell Brak, Eidem, Finkel & Bonechi 2001,
102 and discussion below.
29 See Chapter Ten.
30 KUB 15.35 +KBo 2.9 (CTH 716.1); Collins in Hallo, Context of Scripture, vol. 1, 1997, 164‒165.
This text is particularly interesting with regard to the transmission of tradition. Its curse for-
mula is directed against the enemy and refers to Inanna/Ištar, reversing gender roles in exactly
 North-South Interaction and the Syro-Anatolian Impact on Assyrian Culture 49

Commonalities in Anatolian, Assyrian, and even Israelite ritual practice are

further evident in divination with stones (cleromancy or psephomancy),31
while the Hurrian underpinnings of Assyrian state rituals are discussed in
Chapter Ten.32 Anatolian-Assyrian interaction in the religious sphere is appar-
ent already in the Old Assyrian period in Assyrian merchant documents from
Kültepe/Kaneš that refer to the Anatolian goddess Anna, who is always linked
with other goddesses associated with the sea or with rivers.33 Commonalities
between Assyrian and Hurrian religious practices are evident in the use of the
bīt hamri, which was a sacred precinct. The bīt hamri is attested in the trading
center of Kanesh near ‘the gate of the god,’ where oaths were sworn between
the representatives of the local government and representatives of the mer-
chants from Aššur by the dagger of the god Aššur.34 A bīt hamri asscociated
with the Hurrian storm god is attested in Old Babylonian Šaduppum, which by
that time was part of the Tigridian kingdom of Ešnunna and appears to have
had a strong Hurrian presence.35 It reappears in Aššur in a Middle Assyrian
ritual that includes a procession of the storm god Adad to various temples, city
gates, and the bīt hamri itself.36 Adad assumed a particular role as guardian of
oaths, and it is in this context that the bīt hamri played an important role.37
“The importance of Adad within the traditional pantheon of the city of Aššur
is also highlighted by the fact that the ancient institution of choosing a year-
eponym was performed before Aššur and Adad.38 Another Middle Assyrian rit-
ual, KAR 139, revolves around an object called the Mouth-Tongue (KA.EME)
and a supplicant. As I will discuss in Chapter Ten such objects are attested in
Hittite rituals. The site where the ritual of KAR 139 is performed also links it to
Hurrian ritual practice, as it takes place in the bīt ēqi in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta.
It is important to mention the so-called Assyro-Mitannian tablets in this
context, as this group of magic-medical texts found at Hattuša point to close

the same fashion as Iddin-Dagan A (Böck 2004) and the Ištar-Louvre text, see Groneberg 1997;
on the ritual see further Haas and Wilhelm 1974, 57; Archi 1977, Miller 2004, 374‒375.
31 Horowitz and Hurowitz 1992; Archi 1974; Finkel 1995.
32 See Chapter 10.6.
33 Hirsch 1961, 27; Archi 2002, 49. 27.
34 Veenhof 2003, 436.
35 For the bīt hamri attested in Akkadian, Hurrian and Hittite sources see Schwemer 2001,
247‒256.
36 For the discussion of the ritual see Chapter 10.2.
37 Schwemer 2008, 139 and 2001, 323‒327.
38 As Schwemer 2008, 140 fn. 45 points out, “evidence for this comes from the Neo-Assyrian
period (Shalmaneser III), but there is little doubt that it reflects practices already well-estab-
lished in the early 2nd mill.” With reference to Larsen 1976, 211‒214.
50 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

interaction between Mitannian and Assyrian scribes during the fourteenth cen-
tury BCE. These texts have been labeled Assyro-Mitannian because of their
mixture of Mitannian and Assyrian sign forms.39 Their language is Standard
Babylonian, but they include a number of irregular forms and (Hurro)-Assyri-
anisms that reveal the scribe’s partial familiarity with the Babylonian milieu.40
The origin of these texts is unknown but it has been suggested that they hail
from Assyria when it was still dominated by Mitanni. The content, language,
and syllabary of the tablets clearly point to an ultimately Babylonian origin for
these texts, which among others include an incantation against stillbirth, an
eliminatory ritual of the marriage of the eṭemmu, and a ritual for the expulsion
of the watchful demon (hajjāṭu) and the rābiṣu-demon.41 For the purpose of
this book the importance of these texts lies not so much in their presence in
Bogazköy, to which they must have been brought as booty in the course of
some military campaign probably by Suppiluliuma I. Rather, their significance
lies in the fact that they point to close cultural interaction between Assyrians
and Mitannians during the time of Mitannian dominance over Aššur and dem-
onstrate that there was Assyrian scholarly activity before it appears in known
texts from the city of Aššur. It is scholarly activity of this kind that explains
the elaborate style of the Adad-nīrārī I Epic, the first literary text of the Middle
Assyrian period to have come down to us, which – despite its fragmentary state
of preservation – bears the typical traits of Assyrian epic literature and attests
to a fully developed genre thus evidencing the high education of its author.
Equally important is the fact that Mitanni appears to have made use of a
system of territorial administration that divided land into provinces, as is the
case for Assyria in the Middle Assyrian period. This system likely originated in
the Old Babylonian period, as it is in texts from Mari and in Middle Assyrian
texts that the term halṣ/zu designates a province.42 Termini technici in the As-
syrian language for military or administrative officials such as šiluhlu, gelzuhlu
and hassihlu are in turn derived from the Hurrian language, as is demonstrated
by the presence of the Hurrian suffix –ohlu.43 These termini technici attest to

39 Schwemer 1998, 50‒51; Weeden 2012 even labeled these tablets Middle Assyrian because
of their strong similarity with Assyrian script.
40 Schwemer 1998, 47.
41 For an edition of these texts see Schwemer 1998. Further tablets of this kind are also in-
cluded in Abusch and Schwemer 2011, texts 1.3, 1.5 (ana pišerti kišpī), and 2.2 (a collection of
anti-witchcraft therapies).
42 Lion 2001. Note that the Middle Assyrian province Qatnu can probably be identified with
the Old Babylonian province of Qaṭṭunān, see Llop 2011, 595-596.
43 Postgate 2011, 9.
 North-South Interaction and the Syro-Anatolian Impact on Assyrian Culture 51

the persistence and survival of certain Hurrian administrative practices and

traditions in the organization of the Middle Assyrian state.
A particularly revealing example of the complexity of cultural transmission
within the larger ancient Near Easter koine is the fact that a person with a
Hurrian name held the office of court diviner and the office of the zabar-dab₅
at the court of the Ur III kings, indicating the deep familiarity with and integra-
tion in Sumero-Babylonian culture of at least some individuals with Hurrian
names – and therefore presumably of Hurrian origin. The court diviner Tahiš-
atal appears frequently in the Puzriš-Dagan archive and also in documents
from Umma ranging in date from Amar-Sîn to Šu-Sîn.44 The zabar-dab₅, who
was superior to the chief of the cupbearers and acted as the overseer of the
diviners,45 was responsible both for the administration of offerings for the tem-
ple and the royal cult 46 and probably served as adviser to the king. The occupa-
tion of such high office by Hurrians suggests that at the end of the third millen-
nium Hurrians were not being marginalized and stereotyped as the ‘Other.’
Rather, they were either highly regarded on account of their religious expertise,
which must have been rooted in an urban cultural tradition that was compa-
rable in its complexity to that of southern Mesopotamia, or they were by that
point so thoroughly integrated into southern Mesopotamian society that mean-
ingful distinctions between Hurrians and autochthonous populations are not
recoverable.
The title zabar-dab₅ remained in use in the late Middle Babylonian period,
where it applied to Esagil-kin-apli, scholar of King Adad-apla-iddina (1069‒
1048 BCE), and reflected a similar range of functions as it did under the Ur III
kings.47 During the Neo-Assyrian period, the first member of the family of exor-
cists attested at Aššur, Baba-šuma-ibni, is generally described in the genealogi-
cal formulas with the title zabardubbû bīt Aššur, but is once called MAŠ.MAŠ
bīt kiššūti, exorcist of the “House of Might” (i.e. the Aššur temple).48 Baba-
šuma-ibni’s use of the title zabardubbû for the office of exorcist is a clear indi-

44 Sharlach 2002, 111‒113.

45 See the following dedicatory inscription by the zabardab of Shulgi: “Shulgi, the mighty
one, king of Ur, king of the four corners of the world: Nanna-zišagal, …, zabardab, chief cup-
bearer, overseer of the diviners, is your servant. Seal of Nanna-zišagal” (After Sallaberger in
Sallaberger and Westenholz 1999, 187).
46 Sallaberger 1999, 187‒88.
47 Esagil-kin-apli calls himself zabardabbû of Ezida thus referring to his organizing and ad-
ministrative functions regarding the cult of that temple, Finkel 1988, 148‒149: 22′; Heeßel 2010,
140; note that in Babylonian during the OB period the zabardabbû was an “official of the
palace, in a senior military capacity,” see Podany 2002, 121 with reference to CAD Z, 6.
48 Pedersén 1986, 45 (471).
52 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

cation that the exorcist, in addition to organizing the cult of the Aššur temple,
also acted as educator of the crown prince and adviser to the king. These func-
tions are independently attested in the correspondence between the king Esar-
haddon, the crown prince Ashurbanipal and the exorcist Adad-šumu-uṣur, for
instance.49 The cultic aspect of the Assyrian king’s position as the chief šangû
of the supreme god Aššur is a further example of an Assyrian cultural practice
that bridges between the Syro-Anatolian and Assyrian cultural realms, as the
performance of this office is likewise a prominent role of the Hittite king.50 I
will discuss this point further in Chapter Five.
Last but not last one might want to mention Assyrian emulation of Hittite
architectural design in the building of their palaces in Nimrud, Khorsabad,
and Nineveh. Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon, and Sennacherib
reveal that these kings were familiar with palatial structures built in the Syro-
Hittite, Luwian, and Levantine territories, which were still called after the Hitti-
tes. They all recorded the construction of buildings referring either to the bīt
hilāni-style or that they conceived of their palaces as replica of a palace of the
land of Hatti (tamšīl ekal māt Hatti).51
The above survey merely touches upon a few of the most obvious common
cultural features and practices linking the Hurrian-Hittite and Assyrian cultural
horizons. I will pursue some of them in more depth over the course of this
book. Before I do, it is necessary to outline the initial spread of the southern
cuneiform tradition towards the north. It is also important in this context to
observe the cultural interaction between north and south that resulted from
this spread of cuneiform culture in order to sketch in broad strokes a number
of tropes that were ultimately incorporated into the rich tapestry of Assyrian
royal discourse, particularly during the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods.

2.3 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the

Cuneiform Tradition
In the fourth millennium, the first city state was established at the urban center
of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia. It was characterized by an integrated econo-
my that bound the urbanized core to its hinterland and eventually impelled
the invention of a notation system. Due to the increasingly hierarchical socio-
political character of Uruk, the city was capable of mobilizing labor and resour-

49 SAA 10 nos. 185‒232

50 Taggar-Cohen 2006, 469 ff.
51 Reade 2008.
 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the Cuneiform Tradition 53

ces and developed into a political and administrative center. In this capacity,
Uruk faced new challenges in accounting and accountability. Clay tokens and
cylinder seals had been in use for millennia. What was new in Uruk was the
appearance of clay tablets with numerical signs and the inclusion of tokens in
clay bullae, which could be sealed and marked on the outside with impressions
of the tokens within. These innovations are attested not only in Uruk, but also
in northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and to the east in Susiana,52 bespeaking the
phenomenon that has been termed the Uruk Expansion.53
A further notational device called a “numerico-ideographic” tablet is
known only from Uruk and Susiana in this period. Numerico-ideographic tab-
lets consist of simple numerical notations with the inclusion of one or at most
two groups of ideograms representing discrete objects. These objects, with
their combination of a numerical system and ideograms reflecting words, mark
the beginning of proto-cuneiform. Further, “the idea that commodities, titles,
names and transaction types could be represented graphically led almost im-
mediately to the elaboration of an entire system of signs.”54 The development
of a complex repertoire of signs eventually resulted in the production of lexical
texts, lists of words arranged by topic or category.55 Subsequently, during the
Early Dynastic period, there follow the first literary and commemorative texts,
which present a complex characterization of the king as caretaker of the tem-
ple. This rapid development from numeric-ideographic notation to the articula-
tion of a royal ideology strongly suggests the professionalization of the scribal
guild in the service of rulership.
Sumerian cuneiform was adopted by many of the cultures of the ancient
Near East as the script for writing their local languages. This was the case in
Ebla with Eblaite, in Iran with Elamite, and in northern Mesopotamia with
Hurrian during the third millennium, and later applied equally in Anatolia
with Hittite and Urartian. The broad distribution of Sumerian cuneiform is fur-
ther evidence of the cultural prestige that Sumerian “scholarship” had accrued
during its formative period, as well as of the potential of the graphemic system
to meet both administrative and cultural needs.
Around 2500 BCE, we encounter a “well-developed multi-lingual tradition
that was shared by various independent southern cities and reached far be-
yond to Syria and perhaps elsewhere.”56 The first god lists from Fara57 and Abu

52 Cooper 2004, 72 ff.

53 Algaze 2005; Butterlin 2000; Collins 2000; Postgate 2004; Stein 1999.
54 Cooper 2004, 77‒78.
55 Englund/Nissen 1993.
56 Michalowski 2003, 109.
57 Krebernik 1986.
54 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Ṣālābīḥ date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period (2600‒2500 BCE),58 as does the
first cycle of temple hymns, likewise from Abu Ṣālābīḥ.59 These texts point not
only to the existence of experts versed in the necessities of the local cult but
also imply a conscious endeavor to create a culturally coherent system of su-
pra-regional dimensions.60 The scholars who created these texts contributed
to the shaping of an entire cultural discourse. This is most apparent in the
intertwining of literary and lexical genres on one tablet 61 and sometimes even
in the same text, so that some literary texts adopted the template of lexical
lists.62 Incantations also exhibit literary features, so that it is difficult to distin-
guish between literary and performative texts.63 The earliest cosmogonies ap-
pear at Abu Ṣālābīḥ64 and Nippur65 alongside this multiplicity of text genres.
One of them, known as the Barton Cylinder, tells the story of a food shortage
at Nippur that is remedied by the warrior god Ninurta. This cosmogony antici-
pates a later Sumerian mythic tradition revolving around the warrior god, as
recounted in compositions such as Lugal-e66 and Angimdimma (= Ninurta’s Re-
turn to Nippur),67 and demonstrates that already in the Early Dynastic period
there existed a cultural discourse extolling the figure of the heroic warrior who
combats the forces threatening the existing cosmic order epitomized by the
city.
Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures is the earliest known work of art that com-
bines the myth of the divine warrior with an account of a historical king (fig. 4).
Its pictorial program portrays a mythologized king performing the role of the
warrior god Ningirsu/Ninurta through his martial deeds. On its obverse, the
stele is divided into two registers. The upper register depicts the god Ningirsu
holding a battle net crowned by the Anzû bird with his left hand, while inside
the net are trapped the naked corpses of many soldiers; Ningirsu strikes the
bald head of one of these soldiers with a mace held in his right hand. By means
of its depiction of a crystallized action, namely the god’s ultimate and inevita-
ble triumph, this iconography comprises the “icon” of Ningirsu’s victory rather

58 Mander 1986.
59 Biggs 1974, 44‒56.
60 Rubio 2011.
61 Krebernik 1998.
62 Civil 1987; Rubio 2003.
63 Michalowski 1981; Veldhuis in Abusch/van der Toorn, 1999, 35‒48; Rubio 2009, 26.
64 Krebernik 1998, 321 with n. 805.
65 Alster/Westenholz 1994.
66 Van Dijk 1983; Seminara 2001.
67 Cooper 1978.
 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the Cuneiform Tradition 55

Fig. 4: Eannatum, Stele of the Vultures (Bahrani 2008, 148; Drawing: Elizabeth Simpson).

than a pictorial narrative.68 Behind Ningirsu stands his mother Ninhursag,

crowned with a feather crown and with three maces protruding from each of
her shoulders. In the later Anzû Myth Ninhursag is known to have offered Nin-
urta strategic advice on how to defeat the Anzû bird, and the same dynamic
might be operating here. The lower register depicts Ningirsu on his chariot,
which is pulled into the presence of Ninhursag by two winged lions. There is
no mention of the chariot of Ningirsu in the text on the stele, though the image
is known from other texts that recount Ningirsu’s victory over the lion-eagle
Anzû and his subsequent triumphal procession into the city of Nippur. As such,
to make sense of the imagery of Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures “prior know-
ledge on the part of the viewer would have been required, to which the repre-
sentation stood in a referential status.”69
The reverse of the stele is divided into four registers. In the upper right
corner of the uppermost register there appear the vultures for which the stele
is named, grasping in their beaks the severed heads of the enemy soldiers of
Umma. Below them the king advances together with his soldiers, trampling

68 Winter 1985, 16.

69 Ibid.
56 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

underfoot the bodies of the fallen enemies and marching in the direction of a
heap of human corpses and naked captives. The king’s phalanx is depicted in
an orderly formation, attacking with raised shields and with its spears directed
against the enemy. In the next register, the king leads his phalanx forward
from his chariot. Here, the soldiers within the phalanx carry raised spears and
battle axes, prepared to do battle with the enemy. Due to the fragmentary na-
ture of the stele, it is unfortunately not clear against whom the king and his
soldiers are advancing. The third register shows a naked priest on top of a
mound of animals, libating in front of a large seated figure that has been vari-
ously interpreted as the king Eannatum or as the god Ningirsu. Irene Winter
convincingly argues in favor of viewing this figure as the king Eannatum and
restores the imagery of the stele accordingly.70 The fourth register is poorly
preserved, but Winter describes the surviving fragment as follows: “one sees a
hand at the far left grasping the butt of a long spear shaft, the tip touching the
forehead of a bald enemy near the center of the band. The enemy faces the
oncoming spear. His head emerges from a group of three additional bald heads
before him all facing [the attacking figure].”71
The image of Ningirsu depicted on the obverse of the stele developed into
one of the key metaphors of the kings of Lagaš, who described their election
for kingship in these terms:

When Ningirsu, the warrior of Enlil, had granted the kingship of Lagaš to Uru’inimgina,
….72

This close relationship between the patron deity of a city, who assumes the
role of the divine warrior, and the ruler of the city is equally characteristic of
the ideological discourse of Ešnunna and Aššur in later times.
At a certain point it becomes untenable to conceive of the spread of know-
ledge and the formulation of a royal ideological discourse as purely unidirec-
tional processes. The earliest known example of a royal hymn comes from Ebla,
suggesting that the royal hymn as a text category might have originated as a
distinct northern tradition.73 This royal hymn is from an educational context
and begins with three lines of a literary text before proceeding with a list of
personal names containing the element ‘king’ (lugal):

70 Winter 1985, 18.

71 Ibid.
72 Uru’inimgina (Urikagina) of Lagaš, see Steible and Behrens 1982, Ukg 4 vii 29‒viii 9 = 5 vi
12‒22; Frayne, RIME I, E1.9.9.1 vii 29‒viii 4.
73 Krebernik 1997, 190 with n. 14.
 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the Cuneiform Tradition 57

King, like Heaven, you do not falter/stagger,

Like Earth, you are not to be shaken,
Like the stone you do not know being crunched.74

Only a few Early Dynastic literary texts are known to have been transmitted
directly into later literary tradition, but these texts nevertheless include impor-
tant tropes and motifs that were integrated into later textual production.
Among these tropes are the genealogy of gods, the concept of the me along
with their primary attribution to Inanna,75 and the ascription of functional
roles to certain gods, including the characterization of Ninurta as a warrior
god and the portrayal of the sun god Utu as the chief judge.76 All of these
conceptualizations of the divine realm survived into subsequent historical peri-
ods as key tropes and are notable for their incorporation into the cultural dis-
course of both Assyria and Babylonia.
Royal commemorative inscriptions first appear in the north during the Ear-
ly Dynastic period in a dynamic intercultural setting of competing city states.
Though written by the kings of Kīš, these inscriptions have only been recovered
in the Diyala region and at sites such as Nippur, Adab, and Girsu.77 The inscrip-
tions enable a basic reconstruction of the geo-political environment at the be-
ginning of the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2500‒2350 BCE), which was largely
dominated by the competing city states of Ur and Uruk to the south and south-
west, Umma (-Zabala) to the north, Lagaš (-Girsu-Nina) in the east, and Kīš
and Akšak much further north again.78 Theological rationales underpin mili-
tary narratives within the royal inscriptions from the very beginning, as is plain
in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures, which relates that the gods witnessed the
treaty between the rulers of the city states of Umma and Lagaš. The Stele of the
Vultures also happens to be the earliest known artifact to associate Ningirsu/
Ninurta with the figure of the king by combining the image of Ningirsu’s em-
blematic cosmic victory with a historical account of a king’s military cam-
paign.79 It is therefore fundamental to our understanding of Mesopotamian
royal ideology.

74 This is the text of exemplar A. For variants, I refer the reader to Krebernik 1997, 189:
A I a-b lugal an-ki nu-dúb! (GEŠTIN)
A I c-d ki-gin₇ nu-siki
A I d-g NA₄! (UD.NI)-gin₇ zu-ur₅-ra nu-tukuₓ(ḪÚB)
75 Glassner 1992.
76 Krebernik 1998, 321 f.
77 Cooper 1983.
78 Cooper 1983, 9.
79 See Chapter Six.
58 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

In addition to literary texts and commemorative inscriptions, the Archaic

List of Professions suggests an early tendency towards social hierarchies and a
pyramidic social structure.80 During the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2500‒2340
BCE) Enmetena and Uru-ʾinimgina, rulers of the city state of Lagaš, establish
freedom from debt slavery and corvée labor,81 a political act that persists into
the Old Babylonian period in the form of the andurārum82 and the Old Babylo-
nian mīšaru-edicts. The purpose of such reforms was to restore an original and
more equitable social order. As such, they developed into a trope of royal ideo-
logical discourse, which aimed to demonstrate that the king was capable of
reestablishing and maintaining the cosmic order envisioned and ordained by
the gods. Royal action along the lines of these reforms implies a high level of
centralized control, and in the particular case of the reforms of Uru’inimgina it
is apparent that the palace controlled or at the very least had access to temple
resources.83 Remarkably, the tradition of royally decreed social reforms was
discontinued after the Old Babylonian period, resulting in gross social inequal-
ities that had the potential to produce dramatic demographic changes, as is
discussed by Liverani with reference to the Late Bronze Age.84
It thus appears that highly stratified societies emerged in the south during
the Uruk IV, Jemdet Nasr, and Early Dynastic periods, with a ruler at the pinna-
cle of the social hierarchy. By this time the essential roles and key metaphors
that shaped royal ideology in the future history of the ancient Near East had
been established within cultural discourse. In addition to the king as war lead-
er, a role represented in the Uruk IV sealings with prisoner scenes (fig. 5) and
later in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures, (fig. 4), two further tropes developed,
namely the king as hunter (Lion Hunt Stele from Uruk, fig. 6) and the king as
temple caretaker and provider for the cult (Uruk Vase, fig. 7 and Early Dynastic
votive plaques such as the one of Ur-Nanše, fig. 8).
The importance of the artifacts listed above is clear. They functioned as
condensed ideograms expressing complex economic, socio-political, adminis-
trative, and ceremonial conceptualizations of social order. The production of
these condensed expressions of complex ideas required not only a creative,

80 nám-GIŠ.ŠITA to be read nám-éšda which according to the canonical series Lú = ša means

‘kingship,’ Englund & Nissen 1993; Wilcke 2007, 18‒19, see the discussion in Chapter 5.1.
81 FAOS 5/1 Ent. 79 iii 10‒vi 6 and FAOS 5/1 Ukg. 4‒5.
82 Charpin 1987.
83 Whether Uru’inimgina’s reforms actually implied the reestablishment of divine ownership
over former royal estates is debated and to my view unlikely, Wilcke 2003, 141‒143, see also
Hruška 1973 and Edzard 1974.
84 Liverani 2003 f, 26 f. and passim.
 Early Beginnings in the South and the Spread of the Cuneiform Tradition 59

Fig. 5: Uruk IV Prisoner Sealing (Postgate 1992 25 fig. 2.3; after Brandes 1979 Plate 3).

Fig. 6: Uruk Lion Hunt Stela (Photo: Strommenger and Hirmer 1964, pl. 18; Iraq Museum,
IM 23.477).

organizing agent but also the existence of erudite elites who shaped the weltan-
schauung against which the institution of kingship and the duties of the ruler
60 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Fig. 7: Uruk Vase (Drawing with the Reconstruction of the King: Bahrani 2002, 17;
Photo: after Strommenger and Hirmer 1964, pl. 21; Iraq Museum, IM 19606).

within the cosmic scheme were defined. Although these tropes could exist in-
dependently of each other and within their own contexts, their existence be-
speaks a weltanschauung that bound them to a system of thought in which the
heroic deeds of the king were linked to his privileged access to the gods. With
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 61

Fig. 8: Ur-Nanshe Votive Plaque (Louvre AO 2344 ; Drawing: Boese 1971, pl. 29, fig. 1).

regard to the question of Assyrian ideological discourse and tradition, it is

worthwhile exploring how these key metaphors or tropes were expressed in
individual royal inscriptions and what individual Assyrian rulers chose to em-
phasize and elaborate.

2.4 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North and

its Interaction with the Hurrian Cultural Horizon
This book focuses on the religion and royal ideology of Assyria, yet one cannot
understand Assyrian cultural discourse without reference to its broader con-
text, i.e. the socio-political conditions prevailing in greater Mesopotamia. It is
similarly ill-advised to assume a generalized cultural discourse for the entire
ancient Near East. As such, it is worth stating that Urkeš and Aššur shared
some features in their organization of power, at least during the Old Babyloni-
62 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

an period. The same can be said of Syria in the second millennium, as is clear
from Mari texts and also from later Emar texts.85
In a recent article Giorgio Buccellati collects references made to Urkeš in
the Mari letters.86 The range and number of agents acting on behalf of the city
of Urkeš is particularly striking, as is clear from Buccellati’s list:
– ‘the city of Urkeš’ a-lum Ur-ké-eš₁₅KI (44bis:21)
– ‘the sons of my city’ DUMU.MEŠ a-li-ia (44bis:8)
– ‘the men of Urkeš’ LÚ.MEŠ Ur-ké-ša-yuKI (69:9, a letter from Ašlakka; 105:7′
from Ašnakkum)
– ‘the elders of Urkeš’ LÚ.ŠU.GI.ME Ur-ké-eš₁₅KI (45:rev.12)
– ‘the hābiru are assembled in Urkeš’ (100:22 f, from Ašnakkum)
– ‘assembly’ puhrum and related verb (69:9 from Ašlakka; 99:rev.12′ from
Ašnakkum; 113:10 from Šuduhum)
– ‘Urkeš’ alone, referring to the population of the city as a whole is found in
48:59 (from Ašlakka); 98:17 (from Ašnakkum); possibly 140:17 (from Qa’a
and Išqa, though here the name of Urkeš may simply refer to the place,
not to the inhabitants).

Most of these agents – particularly the city as a collective, the elders, and the
assembly – are also found in Old Assyrian Aššur, as I will show in the next
chapter. The organization of power in Old Assyrian Aššur is therefore not an
isolated case, but rather forms part of the northern Syrian cultural and political
landscape. In both Urkeš and Aššur, however, the various collective urban po-
litical bodies were complemented by the presence of a single ruler, unlike in
Emar, for instance, where so far the institution of kingship is not attested.87
Aššur’s early beginnings – the subject of the next chapter – are difficult to
reconstruct. Nevertheless, analyzing the northward spread of cuneiform writ-
ing demonstrates that Aššur was not an isolated case either in its political orga-
nization or in its cultural discourse. Although “the use of cuneiform writing in
the Hābūr region presupposes the use of lexical and literary texts from Mesopo-
tamia,”88 several texts have been identified as indicating a local adaptation of
southern cuneiform tradition. Important information can also be gleaned from
sites such as Ebla, Urkeš, and the neighboring sites of Tell Brak and Tell Bey-
dar.

85 Fleming 2004.
86 Buccellati 2013, 86.
87 Emar shares the institution of the tahtamum (assembly) with the city of Tuttul, situated
downstream from Emar at the junction of the Balih River and the Euphrates, see Fleming 2004,
211‒217.
88 Sallaberger 2004, 38.
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 63

The diffusion of southern Mesopotamian cultural traditions into northern

Mesopotamia in the Early Dynastic period is indicated not only by the spread
of the corpus of lexical texts, but also by the dispersion of other texts. These
include the hymn to the god Amaʾušumgal, known from Abu Ṣālābīḥ in the
south and Ebla and possibly also Mari in the north,89 and a text about the
Sumerian god Enki from Tell Beydar.90 The Enki Myth found at Tell Beydar
exhibits a peculiar combination of qualities that identify it as the product of
scholarly circles operating in northern Mesopotamia. Its paleography links it
to the second phase of Ebla in the time of the vizier Ibrium, but it is written in
Sumerian despite its Semitic milieu. Further, the material qualities of the Tell
Beydar Enki Myth – particularly its large size and pointed corners, a format it
has in common with literary-lexical and administrative texts from Fara, Abu
Ṣālābīḥ, and Ebla – suggest familiarity with southern Mesopotamian scholarly
practice.
No parallel of the Tell Beydar Enki Myth has been recovered among the
texts from Fara and Abu Ṣālābīḥ. The small scribal exercise tablets from Tell
Beydar also do not contain excerpts from the standard lexical lists, adding to
the perception that a local scribal tradition was at work. A further indication
of the existence of a local scribal tradition in the north during the Early Dynas-
tic IIIb period (2500‒2350 BCE) is the discovery of a fragment of the standard
profession list ED Lu A in Tell Brak,91 which is contemporary with those found
at Ebla and thus postdates ED Lu A texts from Fara and Abu Ṣālābīḥ.
Exercise tablets containing excerpts from the Early Dynastic profession list
Lu E found at Urkeš/Tell Mozan92 and in Gasur93 point to a the adoption of a
distinct educational tradition in northern Mesopotamia that might have origi-
nated in Kiš rather than in Uruk.94 The paleographic features of the ED list Lu
E found at Urkeš again suggest a close connection with Ebla,95 and the inser-
tion of new entries into the list like scribe (dub.sar) and ruler (ensi₂) reveal a
deliberate modernization of southern tradition.96 The find spot of the profes-
sion list in Urkeš, namely within the palace AP, is a tantalizing hint of close
interaction between the king and the local scholars or scribes. Further, the very

89 Biggs, IAS no. 278; Bonechi/Durand 1992; Krebernik 2003; Fritz 2003, 169‒172; for a full
overview of literary production see Rubio 2009.
90 Sallaberger 2004.
91 Michalowski 2003.
92 Buccellati 2003.
93 HSS 10 222.
94 Biggs 1981; Michalowski 2003, 2 n.1.
95 Buccellati 2003, 48.
96 Veldhuis 2010a, 391.
64 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

presence of the profession list Urkeš – only about sixty kilometers north of Tell
Brak – implies interaction with a cultural horizon that is specifically identifia-
ble as Hurrian.97 During the Akkad period, Sargonic school tablets from Ešnun-
na98 and Tell Leilan99 vividly illustrate how Akkadian bureaucratic control was
developed through the establishment of schools and the training of local
scribes.100 The Old Akkadian tablets from Aššur still await publication.
Communication between north and south was maintained through the
trade route that passed by Akšak and Ešnunna before following along the Ti-
gris river through Aššur and Nineveh and proceeding northwest towards Ham-
oukar and Tell Brak or Urkeš; this route then culminated in the Ergani mining
area south of the source of the Tigris via the Mardin pass. Due to its location
by the most important pass from Syro-Mesopotamia into Eastern Anatolia, Tell
Mozan/Urkeš constituted the gateway into the Anatolian plateau. Once they
had reached the plain at Mozan, merchants were able to proceed southward
“either along the Khabur, reaching the Euphrates near Qraya and Terqa, or
continue on the major east-west route, which followed the Khabur triangle
either to the Balikh and Euphrates or in the direction of the Tigris.”101 Early
urbanization in the area of Urkeš was stimulated by its geographic control over
the route into the Ṭur-ʿAbdin highlands, a region rich in copper, timber, and
stones that represented an essential component of the hinterland of Urkeš.102
Although Urkeš belonged to a different trading network,103 the attestation
of scholastic traditions linking it with Ebla bespeaks the mobility of experts
trained in Sumerian lore, a mobility that was constrained neither by political
borders nor by trade relationships. Such early interaction between Urkeš and
Ebla might explain much later finds in Old Babylonian Alalakh, which evinces
a strong Hurrian presence during that period as well as under the rule of Mi-
tanni.
The early urbanization of Urkeš resulted in the production of texts that
convey an official political message and thus allow a glimpse into an early
Hurrian royal discourse that resonates with what we find later in Aššur and
Nineveh. Traces of this process can be observed already in the period following
the Akkadian empire, as inscriptions of Hurrian kings are attested in Nagar

97 Buccellati 2003, 46
98 Westenholz 1972‒74.
99 De Lillis Forrest, Milano, and Mori 2007.
100 Milano in de Lillis Forrest, Milano, and Mori 2007, 53
101 Kelly-Buccellati 1990.
102 Buccellati 1999, 241.
103 Buccellati 1999, 238.
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 65

(modern Tell Brak) and Karahar, located between Ešnunna and Simurrum. The
inscriptions at both sites share a similar conceptualization of the king’s titu-
lary, and refer to the king as ‘sun of the land,’ a title that is absorbed into the
titulary of the Ur III kings only in the reign of Amar-Suen.

Talpuš-atili (Nagar) Zardamu (Karahar)

d
Tal-pu-za-ti-li Talpuš-atili, za-ar-da-mu Zardamu,
d d
utu ma-ti the sun of the country utu ma-ti-šu sun of his land,
na-gàrk of Nagar, na-ra-am beloved
d
dumu [x x]-[x] son of … kiš.nu.gal of Nergal,
ì-lí-šu his personal deity,
an-nu-ni-tum Annunītum
um-ma-šu is his mother.

This solarization of the institution of kingship also occurs, albeit later, in the
Old Syrian royal glyptic (ca. 1700 BCE) that depicts the winged disk hovering
above the king.104 It dominates the iconography of Hurrian glyptic from the
fifteenth century onwards, as well as the Hittite aedicule seals at a slightly
later date. Eventually, solarization makes its way into the Assyrian conceptuali-
zation of the divine kingship of Aššur, which is most prominently represented
in the winged Aššur hovering about the sacred tree flanked by a spectral repre-
sentation of the king.105
A foundation tablet from Urkeš, dating either to the Akkad or Ur III period,
mentions an important figure named Tiš-atal.106 This celebratory inscription is
in Hurrian and refers to Tiš-atal as en-da-an Ur-kèški,107 commemorating Tiš-
atal’s building of the temple of the god Nergal/Kumarbi?108 in Urkeš. As a com-
memorative inscription, it is of great value not only because it demonstrates
the king’s involvement in fostering the cult, but also because its curse formula
sheds light on intercultural contact between Urkeš and Nagar. The curse for-
mula mentions the goddess Bēlat-Nagar, suggesting that the goddess Bēlat-

104 The cylinder seal has been published by P. Matthiae, Syria 46 (1969) 1‒43 and pls. 1‒2;
see also the exhibition catalogue Ebla. Alle origine della civiltà urbana (Milano 1995), 395, 404
no. 242; see also M.-C. Trémouille, dḪebat, 48, with n. 159.
105 Pongratz-Leisten 2011a and 2013.
106 Whiting 1976, Frayne 1997, 462. Two further texts mentioning a Tiš-atal have been found
in Nineveh and Karahar. The first mentions a person named Tiš-atal is an administrative text
from Ešnunna; it dates to the year Šu-Sîn 3 and refers to a certain Ti-iš-a-tal lú Ni-nu-aki,Tell
Asmar 1931‒T615, and the second refers to a king of Karahar: dTi₄(!)-sa-a-tal LUGAL Kára-harki
RIME 3/2, E3/2.5.1.2001.
107 RIME 3/2, E3/2.7.3.1
108 Thus Buccellati 2013, 89.
66 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Nagar of Tell Brak either had a cult in Urkeš, or that she had acquired supra-
regional status by this time:

 1‒ 6 Tiš-atal, endan of Urkiš, built the temple of the god Nergal/Kumarbi?.
 7‒10 May the god Lubdaga (Nupatik) protect this temple
11‒14 As for the one who destroys it, may the god Lubadaga (Nupatik) destroy
(him).
15‒17 May the (weather-god(?) not hear his prayer.
18‒25 May the lady of Nagar, the sun-god, (and) the storm-god(?) … him who
destroys it.109

In this inscription, the local rulers of Urkeš affirm their cultural distinctiveness
by using the Hurrian title endan, composed either of the Sumerian word en for
‘ruler’ or the Hurrian word for “god,” en(i), and the morpheme -dan or -tann/
-tenn indicating professional titles in Hurrian titulature.110 This usage demon-
strates a Hurrian identity that is set against the contemporaneous supremacy
of either the Akkadian or the Ur III empire.111
The supra-regional standing of Bēlat-Nagar is confirmed by her status as a
divine witness in an Old Assyrian treaty that will be discussed below, thus
providing another link between northern Syrian and Assyrian culture. Bēlat-
Nagar’s importance in the cult of Mari is suggested by the discovery in throne
room 108 of a Hurrian incantation that refers three times to na-wa-ri.112 One of
the Mari letters in turn states that Bēlat-Nagar traveled through the region of
Ida-Maraṣ in Northern Syria, possibly to mark the territory under the control
of the king of Mari.113 Bēlat-Nagar also appears in a Hurrian context in an offer-
ing list from Ugarit.114 As observed by Dietrich and Mayer, the ritual texts from
Ugarit exhibit a combination of Ugaritic and Hurrian language, the latter being
used for offering lists and reflecting the frozen character that these texts had
assumed by the Late Bronze Age.115

109 RIME 3, E3/2.7.3.1.

110 Wilhelm 1989, 11 and 1998, 121‒23 “the one who is in charge of the enship”; Wegner 2007,
18.
111 As an abstract Indušše, Indaššu, Endušše and Endaššu occur in the Šemšāra letters (Ei-
dem/Lassøe 2001) in the sense of ‘his royalty’, a title that is also applied to a king of Šimaski
during the Ur III period; as a loanword – entašši – it also occurs in Hittite related to the office
of the entu-priestress, Wilcke 2010, 417 n. 33 with reference to an oral communication by J.
Hazenbos.
112 Guichard 1997, 337 with reference to Thureau-Dangin (1939) 5.
113 Guichard 1994.
114 Laroche, Ugaritica V, 504‒505.
115 Dietrich and Mayer 1999, 61 f.
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 67

Another Tiš-atal, described as the “man (lú) of Nineveh,”116 is known from

an administrative document from Ešnunna that dates to the Ur III period. This
text records the distribution of flour by the ensi₂ of Ešnunna to Tiš-atal and
more than a hundred of his followers when they journeyed to that city on a
diplomatic mission.117 The Hurrian name of the Ninevite ruler Tiš-atal reflects
the prominent Hurrian presence in Nineveh, which is also apparent in a loyalty
oath from Nippur that was sworn by Tiš-atal and eighty other Ninevites in the
third year of Šu-Sîn’s reign.118 Šu-Sîn was married to a woman named Tiamat-
bašti, who has been tentatively identified as the daughter of Tiš-atal and who
had strong ties to Ištar-Šauška.119 Finally, the foundation inscription of Tiš-atal
of Urkeš affirms a distinct Hurrian identity at the same time that it demon-
strates the adaptation of the cuneiform writing system to render the Hurrian
language.120
A salient feature of the Hurrian bureaucratic scribal system is the wide-
spread use of Sumerian and Akkadian logograms. Nevertheless, at least one of
the administrative tablets from Urkeš, while written with Sumerograms and
Akkadograms, was likely read in Hurrian,121 thus pointing to the development
of a distinctive Hurrian bureaucratic language. The foundation tablet of Tiš-
atal and the Hurrian administrative texts represent the beginnings of a royal
ideological discourse within a Hurrian tradition and expressed in the Hurrian
language. This evidence is sparse, but the traditions it attests are found again
many centuries later in the libraries of Hattuša and in the bureaucratic lan-
guage of Mitanni.
Furthermore, the iconography of a seal impression depicting a divine fig-
ure astride a mountain range constitutes a cultural image that is altogether

116 Whiting 1976.

117 Zettler 2006, 503.
118 Zettler 2006, 504 f.: 6 NT 559 (A 31210)
obv. 1)mti-iš-a-tal ensi₂ 2)80 guruš 3)lú ni-nu-[a]ki-me 4)[…]-ka rev. 5)˹nam-a˺-erim₂ ib₂-ku₅ 6)gìr
ba-za-za dumu bu-ša-am-ka 7)itugan-gan-è 8)u₄ 28 ba-zal 9)mu ši-ma-nu-umki ba-hul Tišatal,
city ruler, (and) 80 men, Ninevites … (they) swore an oath. “Conveyer:” Bazaza, son of Bušam.
9th month, 28th day, Šu-Suen year 3.
119 Wilcke 1988; Zettler 2006, 506.
120 Salvini 1998 and Wilhelm 1998.
121 Maiocchi 2011. On the basis of its paleography this administrative document has been
dated to the Old Akkadian period, more precisely to the reign of Narām-Sîn. Although written
in Sumerograms and Akkadograms, according to Maiocchi the presence of Hurrian morphemes
such as the dative-morpheme –va strongly suggests that the tablet was read in Hurrian. It led
Maiocchi to posit that the seals of the royal family bearing the local title endan should “also
be viewed as Hurrian, despite the extensive use of sumerograms.” He suggests such an under-
lying reading in Hurrian even for tablets characterized by the absence of Hurrian morphemes.
68 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Fig. 9: Kumarbi Striding Mountains (Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 1997, 93).

independent of the south (fig. 9). Whereas no comparable representations are

known from the Mesopotamian glyptic tradition, the image is strikingly remi-
niscent of the later Hurrian mythic tradition describing the god Kumarbi as
walking in the mountains.122 This theme also evokes the relief of a mountain
god from the well of the Aššur temple (fig. 10), which has been associated with
Kassite iconography123 and interpreted as a personification of Mount Ebih.124
It may, however, simply be a depiction of the god Aššur that shares commonali-
ties with the Hurrian tradition, especially because Kumarbi represents a combi-
nation of toponym and genitive suffix that is comparable to the use of the
name Aššur to denote both the city and its patron deity.125 In Mesopotamian
tradition, the equivalence of a toponym with the name of a patron deity gener-
ally applies to female goddesses. In the Song of Silver, however, Kumarbi is
said to be the Father of Urkeš and his sister Šauška is described as the queen
of Nineveh.126 On the one hand, this points to the pantheon of the Hurrian city

122 Buccellati 1999, 247.

123 Parrot 1961, pl. 9.
124 Cancik-Kirschbaum 2003, 28. In a conversation on June 28th, 2013 Hartmut Kühne also
showed me the connections with Kassite iconography, which suggests a dating into the Middle
Assyrian period at the earliest.
125 Wilhelm 1982, 73.
126 Hoffner 1988 and 1998, 48‒50; Buccellati 1999, 249 f.; Archi 2009. Scholars differ as to
whether the Song of Silver was part of the Kumarbi Cycle or not, as suggested by Hoffner 1988;
Polvani 2008, 622 has warned against such an assumption. See also Archi 2009, 211 and James
and van der Sluijs 2012, 238 f.
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 69

Fig. 10: Relief of a Mountain God from the Well of the Assur Temple (Photo: after Parrot 1961,
pl. 9; Drawing: after Black and Green 1992, 80).

Azuhinni headed by Kumarbi and Ištar-Šauška,127 while on the other hand it

establishes a direct link between the Hurrian and Assyrian cultural horizons:

Oh Silver! The city you inquire about, I will describe to you. Your father is Kumarbi, the
Father of the city Urkeš. He resides in Urkeš, where he rightfully resolves the lawsuits of
all the lands. Your brother is Tešup: he is king in heaven and is king in the land. Your
sister is Šauška, and she is queen in Nineveh. You must not fear any of them. Only one
deity you must fear, Kumarbi, who stirs up the enemy land and the wild animals (adapted
from Hoffner 1990:46‒47).

The myth reflects the relationship between the mountain people who mine
silver and the city, administered and protected by the god Kumarbi. This god
is set into a genealogical relationship with the storm god Teššub and Ištar-
Šauška of Nineveh, which at the time of Šamšī-Adad I was heavily Hurrianized.

127 Deller 1976, 40.

70 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

By contrast, texts such as the royal ritual KUB 27.38 reveal a fusion of Hurri-
an and Akkadian traditions. This is evident in the list of images of divine kings
(Dšarri=n(a)=āš=e) that includes Nawar and Atalšen, king of Urkeš, as well as
a list of wise kings that begins with Narām-Sîn, whose name is written with
the determinative sign for gods, and proceeds with Sargon of Akkad, king
Audalumma of Elam, Iammahu of Lullu, Kiglipadalli of Tukriš, and Maništušu
and Šarkališarri.128 This text also introduces “Silver, king (ewri), as king (šarra)
…; Hedam(m)u, king (ewri), Kumarbi created you as king (šarra).”129
Evidence of Hurrian settlements is not limited to Urkeš. While there were
probably only a few urban centers with a particularly Hurrian identity, these
are all located in the piedmont zone of the Anatolian plateau and might in-
clude sites like Tell Huēra, Tell Leilan, and Nineveh.130 The spottiness of the
evidence is possibly due to the fact that the core territory of the Hurrians
“seems to have been the rural highland of the Ṭur-ʿAbdin, from where they
spilled over only to a very limited extent in the immediate piedmont region to
the south, which became their sole urban base in the third, and possibly al-
ready in the fourth, millennium – Urkeš being so far the only demonstrable
example.”131
I have dwelt at such length on the early evidence of a Hurrian presence in
the piedmont region of the Ṭur-ʿAbdin because, although it is sparse, it none-
theless points to the existence of an early Hurrian scribal and scholarly tradi-
tion that mediated the tension between local tradition and the cuneiform writ-
ing system with its attendant culture. This mediation shaped the value system
and cultural expression of Hurrian identity, which interacted with Assyrian cul-
ture.
Other intriguing features of Hurrian material culture from Urkeš include
the temple, which was probably dedicated to the Hurrian chief god Kumarbi,132
and the apu, an elaborate monumental pit lined with stone that, as later Hurri-
an ritual texts suggest, served as a nexus for evoking the spirits of the Nether-
world.133 While the pit structure endured into the second millennium, the tem-
ple remained in use for over two thousand years until the end of the Mitannian
kingdom.134 The archaeological evidence of the apu should probably be linked

128 De Martino 1993 and Archi 2013.

129 Archi 2013, 6 f. with reference to Wilhelm 2003.
130 Buccellati 2013, 94.
131 Ibid.
132 Buccellati/Kelly-Buccellati 2005, 2009, 62 f.
133 The apum (pit) plays an important role in Hurrian purification rituals, see Wilhelm 1982,
80.
134 Buccellati 2013, 87‒89.
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 71

with the cult of Kumarbi and/or the ancestor cult at Urkeš, which ties in well
with the Tigridian custom of referring to lineage in order to legitimize the claim
to rulership. Similar cultural strategies are attested in Aššur and Ešnunna.135
The apu reappears in a Neo-Assyrian ritual that is discussed in Chapter Ten.
It should be noted that the earliest areas settled by Hurrians were the
north-eastern Jazira and what later became northern Assyria. According to a
letter from Arad-mu, the chancellor of the Ur III state, Hurrian settlement ex-
tended into the Diyala region by the Ur III period.136 The Ur III king Šulgi built
a temple for the patron deity of Ešnunna, who was addressed as Ninazu in
Sumerian and as Tišpak in Akkadian. Subsequently, use of Hurrian language
spread towards south central Anatolia and northern and central Syria, as is
clear from texts found in Kültepe, Mari, and Alalakh VII, as well as in late pre-
Sargonic Ebla. Indeed, Hurrian may have reached as far as Tunip, south of
Ebla.137
Hurrian identity west of the Euphrates and south of the Anti-Taurus seems
to have been well established by the time of Kültepe Ib, as is demonstrated by
a letter mentioning witnesses bearing Hurrian names, several of whom are said
to be from Haššum.138 While this evidence is primarily based on the attestation
of Hurrian personal names, it is worth noting that the deities of Haššum carried
away by Hattušili I only a century later included the Weather god of Armaruk/
Arruza, the Weather god of Aleppo, Hebat, Allatum/Allani,139 mount Adalur,
and Lel(l)uri, who are divinities associated with a Hurrian identity. In the sec-
ond half of the second millennium BCE, Lelluri is “particularly prominent in
the (h)išuwa-festival of Kizzuwatna attested abundantly at Hattusha.”140
Still another important document indicating the presence of a Hurrian
stream of tradition in the west is the Hurro-Hittite bilingual known as the Ebla
Epic or Epos der Freilassung/Song of Release.141 Although it was written in 1400
BCE, the historical background of the story seems to be the final phase of Ebla

135 Here I have to correct myself, as in earlier years I considered Assyrian interest in genealo-
gies a product of Amorite impact, see Pongratz 1997, 89.
136 Michalowski 1986, 142 and 2011, 249‒272.
137 Wilhelm 2008, 181, 186 f.
138 Hecker 1996; Wilhelm 2008.
139 Allatum/Allani, goddess of the netherworld, is attested as early as 2000 BCE in Northern
Syria, see Wilhelm 1982, 78.
140 Wilhelm 2008, 191; For the assumption that the (h)išuwa-festival was influenced by the
cult of Haššu see Wilhelm 1992; on the festival see further Wegner and Salvini 1991 and Strauß
2006, 11‒13.
141 Neu 1996; Hoffner 1998; de Martino 2000; Wilhelm 2001 and 2011.
72 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

in the Middle Bronze II period, suggesting that the text is of Old Syrian origin142
and that it only later became part of Hurrian and ultimately Hittite tradition.
The Song of Release recounts the story of the enslavement and liberation of
the inhabitants of the city of Igingalliš under their leader Purra, who assumes
mythical dimensions. Igingalliš, which is also attested in the res gestae of Hat-
tušili I,143 was located somewhere to the south of the Antitaurus and west of
the Euphrates.144 According to Wilhelm, it is likely that the Song of Release
“forms part of old traditions about earlier events in the lands south of the
Anatolian plateau and the Taurus chain, including events of the Mari period
which presumably were written in Hurrian and later were adopted by the Hitti-
tes.”145 Wilhelm further stresses that the Hurrian tradition attested at Hattuša
preserves the memory of the ancient kings of Akkad along with that of other
third millennium kings. In his view, this implies the incorporation of third mil-
lennium historical events and experiences into a mythological tradition by an
established Hurrian scholarly elite; this elite then transmitted this historical-
mythological tradition into the second millennium, where it was subsequently
adopted by the Hittites. The creation of a cultural body of knowledge of this
kind entails a longstanding tradition of scribal and scholarly education in the
Hurrian cultural milieu.
In this context one might also want to mention the Old Babylonian city
state of Tigunānum, “known locally and to the Hittites as Tikunani or Tiku-
nan.”146 In his publication of the texts Andrew George suggested that it was
probably located near modern Bismil on the way to Ergani.147 More recently he
tends to locate it south of the Ṭur-ʿAbdin, as he sees connections with Assyrian
trade routes to the west including way stations such as the cities of Hahhum,
Zalpar, Nihriya, Eluhut, Huršanum, Ašnakku, and Burundi.148 The history of
Tigunānum goes back to the time of Yahdun-Līm of Mari.149 During the later
Old Babylonian period, ca. 1630 BCE., this city state was ruled by Tunip-
Teššub, contemporary of Hattušili I,150 whose palace archives yielded several

142 Dolce
143 De Martino 2003.
144 Wilhelm 2008, 193.
145 Wilhelm 2008, 193, with n. 68 and 69.
146 George 2013, 101.
147 With this localization he followed Charpin 2000 and Miller 2001.
148 Email from June 24th. I am most grateful to Andrew George for sharing a manuscript on
letters sent by people from Aššur and Ninet to the ruler of Tigunānum with me, which will be
published in one of the future CUSAS volumes. See also Miller 2001, 419‒420.
149 Charpin 2004, 379 n. 1978
150 Salvini 1994.
 The Spread of Mesopotamian Tradition to the North 73

tablets, among them a “Sumero-Hurrian recension of an Old Babylonian text

ancestral to Urra XV‒XVI”151 and several omen tablets, of which some were
written by a diviner named Kuzzi who was “the authority active in forming the
local divinatory tradition.”152 This diviner probably acted as advisor to the
king, as many omen tablets bear a colophon that locate his tablets in the pal-
ace; they were written by one of his pupils, “hand of Šamaš-muštēšir, in the
palace of King Tunip-Teššub.”153 The omen tablets show indented lines after
the first line, a feature typical of omen tablets written in north Mesopotamia
and its periphery.154 They further show Hurrian glosses and Hurrianizing lan-
guage and orthographic features diagnostic of peripheral Akkadian thus attest-
ing to a tradition that originated in north Mesopotamia and went alongside
Babylonian tradition, equally attested in the archive.155 These omen texts dis-
play distinctive Syro-Anatolian cultural features. As noted by Andrew George:

In many apodoses the storm god Adad is prominent as the divine arbiter of political and
military power. The twin mountains Nanni and Hazzi, which in Syrian and Hittite tradi-
tions are sacred to the storm god (Teššub, Baal-Zaphon etc.) and support him, appear in
two apodoses … The deity Allantum, who appears in still another apodosis … is the Hurri-
an earth goddess Allani …, but with Akkadian feminine ending (the usual Babylonian
form is Allatum). Several texts include apodotic clauses that refer to the Habiru as a mili-
tary force …. These are religious and political circumstances alien to southern Mesopota-
mia but familiar to the north and north-west.156

Another striking feature of the texts from Tigunānum is that they are dated by
līmu in Assyrian fashion, listing personnel of King Tunip-Teššub.157 The Tigun-
ānum texts further include three rituals of which one revolves around the king
receiving a new silver ring every day which he passes on to the haruspex.
Another very fragmentary ritual includes Ištar and the king and a third one
seems to describe a procession of Ištar of Ninet/Nineveh to several cities.158
The presence of a ritual for the patron deity of Nineveh speaks for a close
relationship between the cities of Tigunānum and Nineveh which is further
confirmed by letters from Tigunānum.159 The prominence of Adad and Ištar in

151 George 2013, 101.

152 George 2013, 104.
153 George 2013, 104.
154 George 2013, 105.
155 George 2013, 108‒109.
156 George 2013, 109.
157 George 2013, 101.
158 I am most grateful to Andrew George for having shared Lambert’s notes on these rituals
with me.
159 George manuscript on Syrian letters.
74 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

the religious texts from Tigunānum reflects a tradition known already from the
Old Assyrian Sargon Legend from Kanesh,160 the official pantheon of the Mitan-
ni empire,161 and then from Middle Assyrian curse formulas in the inscriptions
of Adad-nīrārī I and Shalmaneser I at the time of the first major Assyrian ex-
pansion to the west,162 as well as from Neo-Assyrian penalty clauses.163
As meager as the evidence might be, it nevertheless constitutes a clear
indication that there existed a distinct Hurrian stream of tradition that influ-
enced Assyrian ideological discourse. In this context it is legitimate to ask
whether Hurrian scholarly circles were also responsible for the transmission of
the Sargon of Akkad tradition attested in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend found
at Kültepe, which is discussed in Chapter Four. Early evidence for the spread of
Hurrian tradition into northern Mesopotamia of the kind outlined above helps
explain why in the early Middle Assyrian period King Adad-nīrārī I was able
to draw so readily upon Mitannian administrative practices while pursuing his
expansionist interests.164 After all, Mitanni possessed a bureaucratic tradition
that presumably appealed to the needs of Assyria’s ambitious imperialistic pro-
gram and was intelligible from the perspective of Assyrian cultural and politi-
cal horizons.

2.5 Excursus: The Cultural Impact of Treaties

Since the international treaties of the northern Syrian region and the divinities
they include as divine witnesses have already been mentioned, I discuss their
cultural function in more detail here.165 The spread of cuneiform culture166
throughout the ancient Near East in the later Early Dynastic period (2500‒2350
BCE) coincides with some of the earliest evidence of official treaties,167 such as
one drawn up between Ebla and the neighboring kingdom of Abarsal.168 The

160 See Chapter 4. 2

161 Schwemer 2008, 157.
162 Pongratz-Leisten 2011b, 114.
163 Schwemer 2001, 598‒600.
164 von Soden 1952.
165 See also Smith’s (2008) discussion for the Late Bronze Age; Pongratz-Leisten 2012.
166 Michalowski 1990; Cooper 1999.
167 Cooper 2003.
168 Edzard 1992; Tonietti 1997, 232‒33; for all three treaties, which so far have come down to
us from the third millennium – the treaty between Ebla and Abarsal, between Umma and
Lagaš, and between Narām-Sîn and the king of Elam – see Cooper 2003, 245‒249.
 Excursus: The Cultural Impact of Treaties 75

Ebla text has been characterized as a calligraphic master copy169 and reflects
a level of scribal culture that went far beyond the basic training of a scribe.170
Administrative texts of Ebla attest to a lively diplomatic exchange with messen-
gers from the numerous kingdoms around Ebla visiting frequently the temple
of Kura in Ebla to swear an oath of alliance. It is interesting to note that the
principal deity of the city served as the sole supervisor of the treaty.171 Written
evidence for diplomatic activities include further the exchange of gifts prior to
the conclusion of a treaty between Ebla and Mari172 and a reference to a treaty
between Ebla and Nagar/Tell Brak sworn in the temple of Dagan in Tuttul.
These texts demonstrate the spread of distinctive forms of knowledge during
the Early Dynastic period, including the organization of local panthea and the
ritual performance of loyalty oaths.173 Because they refer to and accept a third,
presumably neutral deity as arbiter and witness – like Dagan in the treaty be-
tween Ebla and Nagar – treaties also expose an implicit acknowledgement of
a shared culture that was common to numerous northern Syrian city states.
Treaties further demonstrate that the scholars of the time, while serving diver-
gent political interests, operated within broader networks that were capable of
transcending political and cultural borders.
Treaty making in particular involved ratification ceremonies that included
oath taking and the cursing of any future violators. These ceremonies could
only develop with the mediation of the broader scholarly networks mentioned
above.174 During ratification ceremonies, scholarly experts had to coordinate
the translocal or “international” involvement of the gods of the respective par-
ties and ensure their cross-regional and cross-cultural recognition and translat-
ability.175 Moreover, the treaty between Ebla and Nagar sworn in the temple of
Dagan at Tuttul suggests that, at least in some early treaties, the ceremony was
performed under the purview of a third divine party that was supra-regionally

169 Edzard, 1992, 188 with reference to a statement made by A. Archi in the discussion.
170 Van Soldt 1995, 177 emphasizes that the skill and knowledge of the scribes in Ugarit as
attested in lexical, religious and literary texts in several archives was less developed than that
of their colleagues in neighboring peripheral sites.
171 Biga 2008, 302 with n. 20. The kingdoms around Ebla included Abarsal, Duh, Armium,
Darab, Hazuwan, Kakmium, Ra’ak, and others, see Biga 2008, 294; for the oath ceremony see
Catagnoti 1997.
172 Archi 1998, 5; Catagnoti 1997, 113‒15; Eidem, Finkel & Bonechi 2001, 100.
173 Eidem, Finkel & Bonechi 2001, 100.
174 Biga 2008, 302.
175 Assmann 1997, 2003, 2008; Smith 2008; further Peter Schäfer’s critical comments on Ass-
mann’s approach shifting perpetually between the reconstruction of the history of events and
history as collective memory in Schäfer 2005.
76 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

acknowledged. The same is true for the pre-Sargonic kings of Lagaš, who men-
tion Ištaran of Der as the divine intermediary in their conflict with Umma,
while the role of earthly intermediary was performed by Mesalim, king of
Kiš.176
The supra-regional aspects of treaties also characterize the treaty conclud-
ed between the city assembly of Aššur and king Till-Abnû of Apum, a polity
close to Tell Leilan that had its own kārum in the Old Assyrian period. After
2200 BCE, Apum superseded Tell Leilan as local capital until the latter was
chosen by Šamšī-Adad I as his residence and turned into a hub of international
relations.177 Among other clauses, the treaties from Tell Leilan and Apum de-
fine the import taxes that are to be paid by Assyrian merchants to the local
ruler, who granted residence rights and guaranteed the safe passage of cara-
vans in return. Of particular interest for the reconstruction of the cultural-reli-
gious discourse of Old Assyrian Aššur is the list of deities by whom Till-Abnû,
king of Apum, swore his oath not to the king but to the Assyrians, i.e. the
representatives of the “city of (divine) Aššur, the son(s) of (divine) Aššur in
transit, and the kārum in your city:”178
Treaty between the King of Apum and the City Assembly of Aššur
Col. I
 1 Swear by [An(?)]!
Swear by [(Enlil(?)]!
Swear by [(Šarr]-mātīn(?)!
Swear by Dagan!
 5 Swear by Adad of Heaven!
Swear by Sîn of Heaven!
Swear by Šamaš of Heaven!
Swear by the Assyrian Šamaš/Bel(?)!179
Swear by Nergal
10 the king of Hubšalum!
Swear by the Assyrian Ištar!
Swear by Bēlat-Apim!
Swear by Bēlat-Ninuwa!
Swear by Ninkarrak!

176 Such-Gutiérrez 2003, 333 fn. 1445. Wang 2011, 79.

177 Eidem 2008b, 34. Šamšī-Adad I exchanged envoys with the king of Dilmun in the Persian
Gulf, and the Dilmunite envoys travelled to Šubat-Enlil; see also Charpin/Ziegler 2003, 140 ff.
with further literature. The other example of Tell Leilan’s international trade relations is from
a fragment of a Middle Bronze Age alabaster vessel with remains of an inscription in Egyptian
hieroglyphs (see Meijer 1986).
178 Eidem 2008b, 34.
179 Kryszat 2003, 101.
 Excursus: The Cultural Impact of Treaties 77

15 Swear by Išhara!
Swear by the god(s) of the mountain, and lowland
and rivers!
Swear by the god(s) of the netherworld and the heaven!
Swear by the god(s) of Saggar and Zara!
20 Swear by the god(s) of Martu
and Subartu!
Swear by all these gods
that are present!
Till-Abnû, son of Dari-Epuh,
25 king of Apum
to the city assembly of divine Aššur.180

This section of the treaty lists the deities by whom the ruler of Apum is expect-
ed to swear the oath to the city assembly of Aššur. It begins by listing the
most important deities of both parties, while consistently prioritizing Assyrian
deities. The beginning of the god list is particularly striking due to its combina-
tion of a supra-regional and local perspective. The triad of the originally Sume-
ro-Babylonian gods Anu, Enlil, and Ea is amended in a specifically northern
fashion by replacing Ea with Šarru-mātīn, who should be equated with Aš-
šur.181 Dagan is listed next as still another supra-regional deity who had impor-
tant cultic centers first in Tuttul (ED) and later in Terqa (OB). The astral aspects
of Adad, Sîn, and Šamaš follow, and this programmatic astral dimension is
reminiscent of the curse section of a treaty from Ebla (2400‒2250 BCE) that
invokes the sun goddess, the storm god Adda, and the deity ‘star’ (MUL =
Ištar?).182 Such an invocation of astral deities also occurs in the oaths listed at
the beginning of treaties from Mari,183 in Hittite treaties, and in the treaty be-
tween Ini-Teššub and the king of Ugarit.184 The function of the moon god as
protector of and witness to treaties is a particularly Hurrian tradition that dis-
tinguishes this deity from his Sumero-Babylonian counterparts.185 These astral
deities are subsequently attested among the recipients of offerings in the Mid-

180 Eidem 1991.

181 Durand 1995, 173.
182 For translations see Sollberger 1980; Lambert 1987; Kienast 1988; Pettinato 1991; Edzard
1992.
183 M.6435+M.8987 1‒2 = Durand 1986, 111 ff. and Durand LAPO 16 no. 290 dUTUša ša-me-e
[t]a-ma dIŠKUR ša ša-me-e [t]a-m[a]; M.7750 2′‒3′ [dUtu ša ša-m]e-e t[a-ma] dIŠKUR ša ša-me-e
ta-[ma] (Joannès 1991, 139 ff.).
184 RS. 17.146 rev. 49 = PRU IV, 157 pl. 20.
185 Laroche 1955; Wilhelm 1982, 75.
78 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

dle Assyrian coronation ritual 186 and in a lexical list from Tell Barri.187 In the
first millennium BCE they appear at the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian loyalty
oaths. This history qualifies astral deities as playing a central role in northern
Syrian and Assyrian tradition.
Following the astral deities, the treaty between the city assembly of Aššur
and king Till-Abnû of Apum lists a number of local divinities who had gained
supra-regional status by the time of the Old Babylonian period. These include
Nergal-of-Hubšalum, who also surfaces in Mari texts188 (Hubšalum is located
near Andarig); the Assyrian Ištar;189 Bēlat-Apum, a local hypostasis of Ištar in
the land of Apum,190 whose cult was probably transferred to Tell Leilan after
Šamšī-Adad I made it his residence;191 the Hurrian Bēlat-Ninuwa, who was ven-
erated at Aššur192 and later in numerous Hittite and Hurrian cities; and Ninkar-
rak193 and Išhara,194 both Syrian goddesses.195 In its final section, the god list
records the deified mountains, rivers, heaven, and earth, as well as deified
topographical features like the mountain ranges of the Sinjar (Saggar and
Zara).196 At the very end of the list appear deified Amurru and Subartu. Rather
than being mere designations of the West and the North, as suggested by the
Hurrian entries of the later god list from Emar,197 Amurru and Subartu here

186 KAR 137+ rev. iii 4 f (= Müller, Krönungsritual, 16 f col. iii 32 f.)
187 Schwemer 2001, 284 fn. 1963 with reference to M. Salvini in Pecorella 1998, 189 f, 193 f,
K9.T1:10′‒14′.
188 von Weiher 1971, 37, n. 6.
189 Meinhold 2009 51‒116.
190 Eidem 2008a, 326 f.
191 Eidem 2008b, 33.
192 Meinhold 2009, 168‒181.
193 Westenholz 2010.
194 Prechel 1996, 4, 24; Neu 1996b, 190. See however Sharlach 2002, 92, who stresses the fact
that she is already attested in the god lists of Abu Ṣalābīkh, and therefore might be a Semitic
rather than a Syrian goddess.
195 Westenholz 2010, 397.
196 For Saggar see Durand 1987; for Zara see Joannès 1988.
197 174 dMAR.TU d
a-mur-ru-[ḫe] “Divine West”
175 DINGIR dMartu de-ni a-mur-[ri-we] “the god of Amurru”
Laroche 1989, 9; Richter 1998; Beaulieu 2005. In the first case the Hurrian equivalent has
the suffix -ḫḫe indicating belonging to something (Zugehörigkeitssuffix). The reconstruction in
the second line is based on the entry in a Hurrian offering list from Ugarit which has the entry
i[n] amrw and thus defines the ending –we in a-mu-ri-we as marking the rectum in the genitive
in a genitive construct (Richter 1998, 136 with reference to RS 24.274 = Ugaritica 5, 504 = KTU2
1.125). Yet evidence from Ebla, for instance, in which Martu is used as a gentilic rather than a
geographic term suggests that Martu in the Old Assyrian treaty designates the personification
of the Amorites rather than a mere direction.
 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic Kingship 79

probably designate the divine personification of the Amorites as an ethnic

group, who originated in the region of Mount Bišri, and of the Hurrians, who
originated in eastern Anatolia.
In lines 20‒23, the treaty between Aššur and the land of Apum identifies
the gods by which the oath is sworn as those of Amurru and Šubarum: “Swear
by the god(s) of Martu and Šubārum, swear by all these gods that are present.”
This passage suggests that the gods were all present in some form in the temple
where the oath was taken.198 Also interesting is the fact that at the time of this
treaty – at some point after the reign of Šamšī-Adad I – Aššur is conceived of
as part of Subartu, while in earlier times it was distinguished from Akkad,
Amurru, and Šubarum.199 Finally, the treaty clearly does not express a royal
point of view, at least insofar as Assyria is concerned. Rather, it exemplifies a
scholarly involvement in political exchange that is not dependent on “royal
ideology.”200

2.6 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation

of Charismatic Kingship
At the beginning of this chapter I suggested that the attestations of royal ideo-
logical discourse represented by inscriptions from Aššur, the eastern Tigridian
area, and Urkeš testify to an attempt by local kingdoms to define their own
cultural discourse in the face of the expansionist ambitions of the kings of
Akkad. It is therefore appropriate to examine the ideological discourse of the
kings of Akkad as the other crucial component in the development of northern
and southern royal ideology. Because the city of Akkad has not yet been discov-
ered (it was probably close to modern Baghdad), we have only a few fragments
of the cultural texts that were produced under the aegis of its kings.201 So far
incantations and hymns have been recovered,202 while royal inscriptions, in
contrast, are known primarily from Old Babylonian copies.
After King Sargon (2334‒2279 BCE), the founder of the dynasty of Akkad
(2350‒2150 BCE), defeated the coalition of Sumerian city states led by King
Lugalzagesi, he built the city of Akkad as the seat of Akkadian kingship. An
unprecedented process of enforced unification and political centralization fol-

198 Westenholz 2010, 384.

199 Kryszat 2003, 101 with reference to kt 79/k 101, see Michel, OAAS 1, 99 and Kryszat 2004.
200 I thank Daniel Fleming for this observation.
201 Westenholz 1999, 20.
202 Westenholz 1999, 75 with n. 352.
80 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

lowed, binding the former city states to the center by means of a centralized
tax system. From the strategic location of Akkad the Sargonic kings could con-
trol all of southern Mesopotamia and expand more easily toward the north.
Distant forays into Elam in the East and into the Upper Tigris and Upper Eu-
phrates regions were launched in order to secure and monopolize trade routes.
The progressive imposition of central control that began with the founding of
a new capital at Akkad and the subjugation of the area around the confluence
of the Diyala and Tigris rivers is reflected in Sargon’s adoption of the title “king
of Akkad.” Following the Kišite precedent, the Sargonic kings also assumed
the title “king of Kish.” The assumption of this title implied the adoption of
the role of arbiter associated with the kings of Kīš, as is reflected for instance
in the king of Kīš’s arbitration in the dispute between the kings of Lagaš and
Umma and in the historical inscriptions of the rulers of the Early Dynastic III
period. After his conquest of the south, Sargon added the epithets “governor
of Enlil” (šakin Enlil) and “anointed priest of Anu” (pašīš Anu) to his titulary.
Interestingly, with the exception of the title “king of Akkad” royal titles reflect-
ing the king’s service to the gods precede titles reflecting his earthly rulership
in recitations of the king’s titulary. This is also true for later Assyrian titulary:

Sargon, king of Akkad, bailiff of Ištar, anointed priest of Anu, lord of the land, chief
governor of Enlil, conquered the city Uruk and destroyed its walls. …203

Akkadian royal discourse preserves the traditional association of kingship with

Inanna, though this function is transferred from the Sumerian deity to Ištar of
Akkad. A curse formula of Narām-Sîn reads as follows: “may he hold no scepter
for Enlil, may he not seize kingship for ‘Aštar.’”204
The elevation of Enlil, patron deity of Nippur, to the status of sovereign
god of the pantheon with the responsibility for bestowing kingship – a respon-
sibility evident in the royal title ‘governor of Enlil’ (šakin dEnlil) – can also be
dated to the kings of Akkad. This innovation meant that the goddess Ištar now
assumed the role of intermediary and advocate of the king before the divine
council headed by Anu and Enlil.205 Ištar’s association with kingship never-
theless endured into the Old Babylonian period and beyond, as is plain in the
royal hymns of the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, as well as in the
Etana Myth. The bestowal of royal insignia remained Ištar’s specific preroga-
tive.

203 Gelb(†)/Kienast 1990, 170 f. Sargon C 4:1‒14, see also Foster 2005, 57 f.
204 Foster 1990, 32 xii 22‒28; Westenholz 2000, 79.
205 Pongratz-Leisten 2008 and Westenholz 2000, 80 whose article escaped me at the time.
 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic Kingship 81

Similarly, the earliest attestation of bilingual royal commemorative inscrip-

tions hails from Sargon’s reign, which has been considered crucial in the devel-
opment of Akkadian as a vehicle for formal written expression.206 It is at this
time that the combination of formulaic language recording victorious cam-
paigns, complex narratives addressing the reader, portrayals of the enemy, and
assertions of the cosmic and historical significance of historical events origi-
nated.207 The military accounts of the kings of Akkad are highly detailed and
“offer far more information on the king’s enemies. Sargon’s and Rīmuš’s monu-
ments were decorated with reliefs depicting his defeated enemies, as identified
by captions.”208 This is yet another feature linking the ideological discourse of
northern Akkad with that of Aššur. In the vast corpus of Early Dynastic inscrip-
tions, xenological discourse appears only in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures
and in Entemena’s account of his feud with Umma, both from Lagaš. Even in
these texts, however, the gods are much more active participants than in the
inscriptions of the Akkadian kings, which replace the victorious god with the
king as the central actor in a novel conception of world dominion.209
The image-makers of the rulers of Akkad were clearly familiar with the
visual conventions employed in Lagaš, in some cases possibly drawing their
inspiration directly from pictorial monuments erected by the Early Dynastic III
kings of that city. Despite the fragmentary nature of the diorite stele of Sargon
(Louvre Sb 2, fig. 11), it is evident that its iconic representation of victory was
inspired by Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures. A notable innovation in the Sar-
gonic imagery is that it is now the king (Sargon himself) rather than the god
of the victorious city (i.e. Ningirsu on the Stele of Eannatum) who holds the
net and smites the enemy within it. Lorenzo Nigro has argued persuasively that
the enemy chief in the stele of Sargon, depicted with his head protruding from
the net, is Lugalzagesi of Uruk, who was vanquished by Sargon during his
early military endeavors in southern Mesopotamia.210 The royal rank of the
enemy being struck by Sargon is indicated by his beard and long, loose hair,
“suggesting that he had just lost his royal hair buns while fighting in battle.”211
Opposite to the king is a seated figure with three undulating rays rising from
the shoulder, one of them ending in a mace head. This detail has been convin-
cingly interpreted as the attribute of Ištar in her warrior aspect, which would

206 Foster 2009, 145.

207 Foster 2009, 198.
208 Westenholz 1999, 75 with reference to Buccellati 1993.
209 Westenholz 2000.
210 Nigro 1998, 93.
211 Nigro 1998, 90.
82 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Fig. 11: Diorite Figure of Sargon (Börker-Klähn 1982, fig. 19b; Louvre, SB 2).

identify the seated figure as Ištar.212 The elevation of Akkad’s patron deity to
the rank of the Akkadian dynastic goddess and the syncretistic identification
of Inanna of Uruk and Semitic Ištar were integral to Sargon’s religious reforms.
Further, “the placement of the king’s daughter Enheduanna in the office of en-
priestess at Ur and the renewed central role assigned to Enlil,” were, as Nigro
contends, all means of “obtaining a cultural and ideological supremacy over
the South and of gaining the political consensus of the powerful Mesopotamian
clergy.”213 Ištar’s central role in kingship was also adopted by the rulers of
Aššur during the Akkad period.214
Although the enemy figures trapped in the net are depicted naked in both
Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures and in the stele of Sargon, only in the latter

212 Nigro 1998, 85 with further bibliography.

213 Nigro 1998, 88.
214 See Chapter Three.
 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic Kingship 83

do these enemies sit in an orderly formation and appear submissive. In the

Stele of the Vultures, the god Ningirsu is shown achieving the ultimate cosmic
victory over disruptive forces; in the stele of Sargon, this iconic representation
is transformed and becomes an image of ongoing royal action under the gui-
dance and protection of the dynastic goddess Ištar to ward off threats to civili-
zation, thus affirming the victory of order over chaos.
Sargon’s adoption of the central gesture of the warrior deity on his stele
epitomizes the transition from the Early Dynastic programmatic statements
combining myth and historical events to the ideological discourse of the Akkad
period. The replacement of Ningirsu with the king in the pictogram with the net
constitutes an appropriation of the mythic icon of victory by the king, thereby
centering martial action primarily on himself. By the time of Sargon’s grandson
Narām-Sîn, the transition is complete: the image of kingship becomes that of
the “eternal” warrior, and on his famous Victory Stele Narām-Sîn is so com-
pletely identified with the role of the warrior god Ningirsu that he is represen-
ted as superhuman in size and in command of both life and death. Accordingly,
the Victory Stele of Narām-Sîn marks the historical juncture at which the era of
independent city states transitioned to one of unified empire and centralized
kingship. Several strategies can be observed in the Victory Stele. As mentioned,
Narām-Sîn emulates the depiction of the warrior god Ningirsu in Eannatum’s
Stele of the Vultures215 by representing himself as superhuman in size and capa-
ble of commanding life and death. The artistic choices made in Narām-Sîn’s
Victory Stele contrast strongly with those in Eannatum’s stele, as the former
“presents events not linearly or sequentially but hierarchically. Narām-Sîn, the
mighty king of Akkad, is the telos of the temporal narrative. The king is there-
fore the culmination of the event.”216 Narām-Sîn’s body is portrayed emerging
as a silhouette against the sky, walking on the mountaintop and crossing into
territory hitherto uncharted by the kings of Mesopotamia. The imagery depict-
ing the king mastering unknown territory is a new element in royal iconogra-
phy. Although it commemorates the historical event of Narām-Sîn’s campaign
against the Lullubu in the eastern mountains, the Victory Stele transforms Nar-
ām-Sîn visually into an icon of victory in the role of master of the universe.
The gesture of the warrior god Ningirsu, whose power over the enemies in his
net on Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures manifests the glorious outcome of the

215 Steible and Behrens 1982, 120‒145; Cooper 1983, 45‒47; Winter 1985; Winter 1986; Heuzey
1884‒1912, pls. xxxviii‒xlii (copies and drawings showing the position of the text in relation
to the relief); Alster 2003/2004. For a different interpretation see Selz 2008, 22 who also inter-
prets the figure on the obverse as the ruler in the role of the divine victor.
216 Bahrani 2008, 109.
84 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Fig. 12: Stele of Naram-Sin (Winter 2002, 305).

battle, is replaced in the Victory Stele by the king shown in the heroic action
of trampling over the defeated enemy. A variation of this triumph motif 217 is
known from the “war-side” of the Early Dynastic Banquet Stele from Ur, which
shows the king driving over the bodies of the enemy with his chariot. Unlike
Eannatum’s victory in the Stele of the Vultures, Narām-Sîn’s triumph is concep-
tualized as a human achievement accomplished by an ideal king. Narām-Sîn’s
emulation of the warrior god Ningirsu/Ninurta – who by the end of the Early
Dynastic period becomes established as the son of Enlil, chief god of the Sume-
rian pantheon and patron deity of Nippur218 – is total.

217 Becker 1985; Rubio 2007, 27‒29; the motif of the king trampling the enemy continues
through the Anubanini relief at Sarpol-I Zohāb to the Darius relief at Bisutun.
218 The Barton Cylinder provides evidence for this, Alster and Westenholz 1994; see also the
discussion by Wang 2011, 192.
 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic Kingship 85

The image of the ideal king combines a variety of elements that all contrib-
ute to the sacralization of kingship: the perfect body, the king’s superhuman
size, and the demonstration of victorious action not in the alluvial plain but in
the wilderness of the mountains. In the Victory Stele, these tropes are supple-
mented with the horned crown, which signals the divine status of the king
(fig. 12). This visual icon is further complemented by the writing of the king’s
name with the divine determinative in the inscription. The Victory Stele thus
serves as a visual expression of the new conception of kingship,219 standing at
the historical juncture between an era of independent city states and an era of
unified empire and centralized kingship. Before the Akkad period, kingship
had been conceived of in “limited terms and within the local structure of the
city-state,” but it “now came to be defined as sovereign power.”220 The text of
the Victory Stele, reporting on the historical defeat of the Lullubi mountain
tribes, can also be read on a mythic level as narrating the royal victory over
the disruptive forces of chaos.221
By means of such steles, as well as through sculptures and rock carvings
that were always combined with historical narratives of their conquests, the
kings of Akkad in a very material way appropriated and demarcated the space
of their empire. This pictorial materiality served to proclaim their presence and
their claim of control over a specific territory. Narām-Sîn’s rock carving at Pir
Hüsein at the Tigris tunnel (fig. 13) can be interpreted as precisely such a decla-
ration of presence, rather than as a symbol of actual control over the region.
The cultural technique of indexing royal presence in the ‘four corners of the
world,’ developed by the kings of Akkad, became part of the repertoire of topoi
incorporated into the foundational myths of kingship, in which it appears in
the guise of the rebellion theme.222 As a topos, the indexing of royal presence
in the ‘four corners of the world’ also surfaces in the inscriptions of the kings
of Akkad and in their legendary tradition, and later reappears as one of the
most important strategies adopted in the royal inscriptions of Assyrian kings.
The driving impetus behind this strategy, namely the alignment of the known

219 Why some scholars want to read the DINGIR category marker as a logogram for ilum ‘god’
and thus introduce a distinction in the act of divinizing between the deified king and other
deified entities such as statues, steles, cultic paraphernalia etc. remains opaque to me, see the
recent discussion by Král 2010.
220 Bahrani 2008, 102.
221 Westenholz 2000a, 102.
222 See the expression “when the four quarters rebelled against him” (Frayne, RIME 2,
E2.1.4.3 iii 15‒18 = Wilcke ZA 87 24 J ix 13‒17; Frayne, RIME 2, E2.1.4.3 iii 27 = Wilcke ZA 87 25
J ix 26‒30; Frayne, RIME 2, E2.1.4.8 ii 1′‒5′; p. 138, RIME 2, E2.11.4.28:9‒13; p. 140, E2.11.4.29:5‒
7 collected by Westenholz 2000a, 107).
86 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

Fig. 13: Fragment of Naram-Sin’s Rock Carving at Pir Hüseyin at the Tigris Tunnel
(Börker-Klähn 1982, fig. 25).
 The Dynasty of Akkad and the Creation of Charismatic Kingship 87

boundaries of the universe with the boundaries of empire, will be discussed at

greater length in Chapter Four.
Because the royal inscriptions of the kings of Akkad were studied and cop-
ied by Old Babylonian scribes, they became part of a supra-regional cultural
heritage. In this context, King Sargon was integrated into the Babylonian textu-
al tradition as the successful founder of a new dynasty, while his grandson
Narām-Sîn was presented as the prototype of the Unheilsherrscher who, in his
hubris, challenged the gods themselves, and ultimately provoked the demise
of the empire.223 This paradigm only changed with the production of texts like
the Weidner Chronicle. As is discussed in Chapter Eight, the survival of so few
cultural texts from the Old Akkadian period is mitigated by the fact that the
kings of Akkad entered the Old Babylonian stream of tradition on account of
their great political achievements.224
The kings of Akkad also marked the high point of the literarization of the
figure of the king. Many legends relate to two kings of Akkad in particular,
namely Sargon and Narām-Sîn. Episodes from the lives of these kings consti-
tute an ideal setting for the politically motivated utilization of history and aid
in the establishment of continuity with the past. Moreover, the king is con-
ceived of as “an artisan of human experience,”225 a paradigmatic figure at the
crossroads between private history and cultural history. Legends of the kings
of Akkad surviving in copies from the Old Akkadian, Old Babylonian, and later
periods attest to the overall perception that these kings had created a “new
type of charismatic kingship.”226 This monarchic template shaped the ideolo-
gies of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and even later empires in a process
of translatio imperii,227 reinforcing the place of combat as the primary strategy
for empire-building. Once this paradigm took hold, all subsequent rebellions
against the king could be and were regarded as infringements of the bounda-
ries of the empire and, correspondingly, as disruptions of and rebellions
against the cosmic order. The discovery of a composition about Sargon of Ak-
kad among mercantile texts in a private house at the kārum of Kaneš represents
a rare indication of the appropriation of Akkadian tradition by the city of Aššur,

223 Westenholz 1997.

224 Westenholz 1997.
225 For similar developments of the king’s novel in Egypt see Loprieno 1996, 287.
226 Westenholz 2000a, 99.
227 This notion of translatio imperii was generally applied to the continuity of empires from
Assyria to Babylonia and from Media to Persia, see Liverani 2003, before it was turned into a
comprehensive model of world history, see Liverani 2005, 224. As I learned from Gonzalo Ru-
bio, the most famous early use of this concept is from Otto Frisingensis (12th cent.), who ap-
plied it to the Heilige Römische Reich, see Whaley 2012, 17 ff.
88 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

whence it journeyed deep into Anatolia during the early second millennium
BCE.
In the legends of the kings of Akkad the topos of salutary accounts of hard-
ship is closely linked with the topos of the king’s normative behavior. This
normative behavior is reflected in the king’s relationship with the gods, as is
observed critically in the Curse of Akkad and in the Cuthean Legend. In the
Mesopotamian weltanschauung any failure of the ruler to pay due attention to
the gods could provoke their wrath and lead them to abandon their cities,
which left these cities bereft of divine protection and vulnerable to enemy inva-
sion. This theological explanation of political crisis dominates the literary com-
positions of the Curse of Akkad 228 and the Sumerian City Lament, both of which
are related to the collapse of the Ur III empire.229 It also demonstrates again
the close link between the king’s actions and the welfare of his country, the
latter represented by its constituents, the city states. Moreover, this explana-
tion of political crisis is integrated into the scholarly genres of chronicles230
and omen literature, the latter of which includes references to some of the
omens reportedly recorded under the kings of Akkad.231
By the Old Babylonian period Akkad had developed “into the paradigm or,
better, the prototype, for future dynasties in 1) its scope and power, through
the unification of Babylonia and control of the periphery; 2) its elaboration of
an imperial bureaucracy; and 3) its new conception of royalty.”232 Fascination
with the kings of Akkad endured into the Neo-Assyrian period and beyond, as
is apparent from the content of the library of Kiṣir-Aššur, chief exorcist of the
Aššur temple during the reign of Ashurbanipal.233 In addition to a host of
scholarly texts, Kiṣir-Aššur’s library contained the Weidner Chronicle, Sargon’s
Report on his 8th Campaign, and Sargon’s Geography, which describes the crea-
tion of an imaginary empire of nearly cosmological dimensions under Sargon
of Akkad, the namesake of the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II.
Although there was a deliberate effort to introduce Akkadian as a language
of prestige under Sargon of Akkad, many official inscriptions were written in
Sumerian or as bilinguals. This suggests that the established scholarly circles
of Sumer retained their position alongside the newly developing scholarly elite
at the royal court of Akkad. It is only towards the end of the Old Akkadian

228 Cooper 1983; Glassner 1986; see also the contributions in Liverani 1993.
229 Michalowski 1989; Tinney 1996; Green 1978 and 1984.
230 See Grayson 1975, Chronicles 3 and 4.
231 Güterbock 1938, 60 f. and Cooper 1980.
232 Cooper 1993, 11 f.
233 Baker 2000, 623 no. 26 f.
 The Transformation of Tradition During the Ur III Period 89

period that the Akkadian language becomes the primary vehicle of expression
in texts. Following the disintegration of the empire of Akkad, Gutian rulers
continued using Akkadian, while the kings of the Ur III period reverted to the
use of the prestigious Sumerian language.

2.7 The Transformation of Tradition During the Ur III Period

The Old Babylonian historiographical tradition centered on the kings of Akkad
is only one element in Assyrian historiography. Literarization of the kings of
Akkad constitutes another important element, but it is not preserved as a dis-
tinct text genre. Instead, this literarization is manifest as a reservoir of tropes
utilized in the construction of the image of kingship. The royal self-praise genre
from the Ur III234 and the early Old Babylonian periods, for instance, perpetuat-
ed and perfected a tradition that originated in the Early Dynastic period.235
Of central importance are those tropes that depict kings and divinities in
league with one another, legitimizing kingship through the intimate associa-
tion of the king with the divine world – a practice best attested for the panthe-
on of Uruk, to which the Ur III kings frequently referred because Uruk was the
ancestral home of their dynasty.236 The idea that a living king should pay close
attention to the written legacy of his predecessors, a notion that figures promi-
nently in the Cuthean Legend, is attested for the first time in Šulgi’s self-praise:

Because of my extraordinary wisdom and my ancient fame as a master, he should choose

my hymns as example, and himself beget heavenly writings (mul-an).237

Since only one known manuscript of Ur III royal hymns actually dates to the
Ur III period,238 it is difficult to tell whether this topos was original to the liter-
arization of the king during the Ur III period or whether it was introduced as
part of the Old Babylonian redaction of Ur III hymns. Evidence of Ur III literary

234 Machinist 1976.

235 For a discussion on the origin of self-praise in the Ur III period, see Cooper 1993, 14 with
n. 16.
236 As with the goddesses Inanna and Ninsun, see for instance Šulgi A 7: dumu u₃-tud-da
nin-sun-kam-me-en “I am a child born of Ninsun,” or with legendary heroes such as Lugalban-
da and Gilgamesh; as shown by Wilcke 1987‒1990, the alliance between the goddess Ninsun
and the hero Lugalbanda goes back to Early Dynastic times. For other alliances such as Gilga-
mesh as the brother of the king, and Ninsun as his mother see Wilcke 1989.
237 Šulgi B ETCSL t.2.4.2.02: 305‒307: geštug₂ geštug₂ dirig-ga-gu₁₀-še₃ / um-mi-a-gin₇ mu lib-
ir-ra-gu₁₀-še₃ / nig₂-umun₂-a en₃-du-gu₁₀ he₂-en-pad₃-de₃ mul-an he₂-u₃-tud.
238 Rubio 2000 [2005], 216.
90 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

compositions is scanty, but the existence of several Ur III literary catalogues

listing incipits of compositions – including two royal hymns of Šulgi and Ur-
Namma respectively239 – suggests that there was a full-fledged body of cultural
texts that re-invented the image of the king during the Ur III period. This re-
invention and transformation of tradition is documented under King Šulgi of
Ur, who had to overcome a crisis caused by the death in battle of Ur-Namma,
the founder of the dynasty. As Piotr Michalowski writes:

The centralized, patrimonial state run from Ur required a well-regulated and well-trained
bureaucracy that could be held accountable for all fiscal and organizational activities.
Writing was the instrument by which the Crown exercised oversight and control, as docu-
mented by the hundred thousand or so published administrative documents from the
period. The heads and minds of these literate servants had to be molded through school-
ing that not only taught them writing skills but also indoctrinated them into the ideologi-
cal aspirations of the new state. Although contemporary evidence is still sparse, it appears
that sometime under Shulgi the masters of the royal academies literally wiped clean the
literary slate and discarded all but a few of the old compositions that went back to Early
Dynastic times, that is more than half a millennium earlier. They kept most of the peda-
gogical tools such as word lists, but discarded virtually all the old narratives, replacing
them with materials written in honor of the contemporary ruling house.240

Šulgi’s foundation of ‘academies’ is mentioned in his self-praise Šulgi B, the

introduction of which also states that he was educated in the Sumerian and
Akkadian textual tradition in the e₂-dub-ba:

11‒20 I am a king, offspring begotten by a king and borne by a queen. I, Šulgi the noble,
have been blessed with a favorable destiny from the womb. When I was small, I was at
the academy, where I learned the scribal art from the tablets of Sumer and Akkad. None
of the nobles could write on clay as I could. There where people regularly went for tute-
lage in the scribal art, I qualified full in subtraction, addition, reckoning and accounting.
The fair Nanibgal, Nisaba, provided me amply with knowledge and comprehension. I am
an experienced scribe who does not neglect a thing.

In the same self-praise, Šulgi boasts not only of his military training and hunt-
ing prowess, but also of his knowledge of extispicy, of his skill in music, and
of his mastery of five languages.241 The passage of Šulgi B pertaining to the
foundation of academies in Ur and Nippur is as follows:

308‒319 In the south, in Ur, I cause a House of Wisdom of Nisaba to spring up in sacro-
sanct ground for the writing of my hymns; up country in Nippur I established another.

239 Rubio 2009, 37.

240 Michalowski 2008, 38.
241 Rubio 2006.
 The Transformation of Tradition During the Ur III Period 91

May the scribe be on duty there and transcribe with his hand the prayers which I institut-
ed in the E-kur; and may the singer perform, reciting from the text. The academies are
never to be altered; the place of learning shall never cease to exist. This and this only is
now my accumulated knowledge! The collected words of all the hymns that are in my
honor supersede all other formulations. By An, Enlil, Utu and Inanna, it is no lie – it is
true!

The reference to the establishment of academies “for the writing of my hymns”

once again points to the potential for interaction between scholars and the
king.
Šulgi’s foundation of academies was centered on the cities of Nippur and
Ur, the respective religious and political capitals of the Ur III period. The Ur III
scholarly tradition was preserved into the Old Babylonian period in the institu-
tion of the academy (e₂-dub-ba), where textual standardization is likely to have
begun.242 Old Babylonian academies appear to have been located in private
houses, which are attested archaeologically in Nippur, Sippar-Amnanum, Tell
ed-Der, Ur, and Meturan.243 The significance of the city of Meturan to the trans-
mission of the stream of tradition is discussed in more depth in Chapter Three.
This chapter has outlined the origins of a scholarly discourse centered on
the figure of the king. Discourse of this kind is recoverable for the first time
with the emergence of writing in the Uruk IV period toward the end of the
fourth millennium BCE, and a continuous tradition is evident through to the
emergence of the first empires during the Akkad and Ur III periods. The iconog-
raphy of artifacts such as the Uruk Vase and the Lion Hunt Stele points to a
body of experts concerned with shaping the royal image, which develops sub-
stantially during the Early Dynastic period (2900‒2350 BCE). Artifacts such as
Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures from the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2500‒2340
BCE) advanced the notion of the warrior as leader figure, in both the divine
and the human realm. The spread of cuneiform writing during the Early Dynas-
tic period involved the diffusion of lexical and literary texts from the south into
the north, where a local scholarly tradition was emerging, as is apparent in
political centers such as Kiš, Ebla, Tell Brak, and Urkeš. Simultaneously, this

242 I use the category of standardization as opposed to canonization, which circumscribes a

closed body of texts. See also critically Foster 2007, chapt. 1. For the Old Babylonian textual
standardization of Sumerian literature see Rubio 2009.
243 Vanstiphout 1995; Veldhuis 1997; Tinney 1999; Robson 2001; Rubio 2009, 39‒42; Robson
2011. While the body of knowledge written in the Sumerian language survived in the institution
of the Old Babylonian edubba, the late Old Babylonian tablets from Dūr-Abiešuh provide evi-
dence for the emergence of a specifically Akkadian written tradition that maintained “close
connections to the intellectual traditions of Nippur but displays a marked proclivity for writing
in Akkadian.” (George 2009, 149).
92 The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia

northern Syrian horizon was interacting with Hurrian tradition, which repre-
sents an important cultural element in the piedmont region of northern Meso-
potamia. During the Old Akkadian, Ur III, and Old Assyrian periods, the Sume-
ro-Babylonian and Syro-Hurrian traditions both contributed to the develop-
ment of a cultural discourse in Aššur and in the larger Tigridian area, including
Ešnunna and Tigunānum. This will be demonstrated in the next chapter. Fo-
cusing on the third millennium represents an attempt to demonstrate the cos-
mopolitan nature of scholarship from the very beginning. It also illuminates
why in later periods Assyrian kings could so easily turn to a rich tapestry of
traditions from which to weave their particular ideological discourse, as hap-
pened in the Middle Assyrian period, when Assyria first became a territorial
state.
3 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition
3.1 Where to Begin?
Where and when can we first locate a specifically Assyrian ideological dis-
course? Who can we identify as its ‘founding father(s)’? The perspective of the
modern historiographer of the ancient Near East has been greatly distorted by
the evidence of the later territorial and imperial states, which were character-
ized by a cultural and political center. Traditional histories of Assyria typically
begin in the second rather than in the third millennium BCE, thereby separat-
ing the city of Aššur’s history as a center of trade during the Old Assyrian
period from Assyria’s history as a territorial state in later periods.1 Consequent-
ly, the emergence of a particularly Assyrian cultural discourse is said to begin
only when the former city state Aššur developed into a territorial state during
the Middle Assyrian period in the second half of the second millennium BCE.
This reconstruction of Assyrian history has persisted in part due to recent
developments in the field of Assyriology. In recent decades, Assyriology has
become increasingly fractured as research has focused on ever narrower fields
of specialization. Research on Assyrian history has not been spared this phe-
nomenon, becoming chronologically compartmentalized into studies on the
Old, Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods. Resulting research has been informed
by a correspondingly restricted interpretation of tradition. Further, research on
Assyrian cultural discourse has been confined primarily to the literary texts.
Because the city of Aššur produced almost no such texts,2 scholarly study of
Assyria has instead been preoccupied with Assyria’s perceived historiographic
tradition. Scholarship has largely ignored the ancients’ blurring of the ‘literary’
and the ‘historiographic’ texts and has focused on the annals for which imperi-
al Assyria is famous.3 Regarding Mesopotamian literary tradition per se, schol-
ars have been primarily concerned with trying to explain how this literary tra-
dition – as expressed in tales of the kings of Akkad 4 – spread through Mesopo-
tamia, into Mari in Syria, and further afield into Anatolia. The purpose of such
investigation was to determine whether the spread of tales of the kings of Ak-
kad beyond Mesopotamia was a consequence of the direct presence of the Ak-

1 Veenhof/Eidem 2008.
2 See now the Old Assyrian Sargon legend found at Kültepe and published by van de Mieroop
2000, 145‒159 on the basis of its primary edition by Günbatti 1997.
3 Liverani 1981, Michalowski 1983, Tadmor 1991, Renger 1986, and Weissert 1997 represent
notable exceptions.
4 Güterbock 1938.
94 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

kadian kings in Anatolia or whether it was necessary to posit channels of trans-

mission either through the Hurrians or the Old Assyrians.5 In this approach,
the Hurrians were considered creative in their adaptation of the Babylonian
tradition because there is concrete textual evidence indicating such creativity.6
Aššur, however, was omitted from such analyses, because there is very little
direct evidence for its early cultural discourse, which can be reconstructed only
through a careful analysis of other surviving media.
In this vein, because the earliest building inscriptions of the rulers of Aššur
possess formal characteristics that show commonalities with royal inscriptions
from the south, they have been categorized as typical Old Akkadian and Ur III
inscriptions and, consequently, have been included in editions of the royal
inscriptions of the kings of Akkad and the kings of the Ur III period.7 Yet the
archaeological evidence demonstrates the existence of a flourishing and inde-
pendent economic and cultic life in Aššur already during the Early Dynastic
period, as is clear from the older layers of the Ištar Temple.8 This situation is
also indicated by early inscriptions attesting to Aššur’s intermittent independ-
ence during the reigns of the Old Akkadian and Ur III kings. Despite this impor-
tant evidence, scholarship has tended to approach Aššur’s history as if it began
only in the first centuries of the second millennium BCE, “when it exhibited a
set of distinctive features in the areas of political institutions, economic struc-
tures, law, religion, language, and art, which set it off from the preceding Ur III
empire, contemporary Babylonia and the following Middle Assyrian period.”9
The situation was, however, much more fluid during the third and first
half of the second millennium BCE, when cities rose to prominence primarily
on the basis of their economically strategic locations within the commercial
networks that crisscrossed the ancient Near East in general, and northern
Mesopotamia – notably Ešnunna, Mari, Aššur, Ekallatum, Emar, and Carchem-
ish – in particular.10 The recent finds of Tigunānum11 seem to indicate that one
has to add this city to the list of major centers in the Northern Syrian and
Tigridian region. Aššur emerged as one ‘center’ alongside others, constituting
a node in the dynamic network of cultural interaction that linked Amorites,
Hurrians and Babylonians. Due to the archaizing Old Akkadian features of the

5 Kammenhuber 1976a and 1976b.

6 de Martino 1993.
7 Gelb & Kienast 1990, 79 f. and 369; Steible 1991, 245; Galter 1997, 54; Frayne, RIME 2, E2.4.1.1.
8 Bär 2003.
9 Veenhof and Eidem 2008, 19.
10 Durand 1992; Charpin and Durand 1997, 376‒377.
11 George 2013, 101‒128
 Where to Begin? 95

Old Assyrian language, Aššur has not generally been regarded as subject to
the Babylonization of written culture in Upper Mesopotamia,12 while the terms
‘Akkadian’ and ‘Akkad’ have been understood merely as synonyms for the cit-
ies of Ešnunna and Babylon.13 In a recent study of Ešnunna’s role in the forma-
tion of scribal tradition in Mari, the Middle Euphrates, and Upper Mesopota-
mia, Dominique Charpin suggests that the term ‘Babylonization’ should be re-
placed with ‘Akkadization,’ since this process started in the period of
Ešnunna’s emerging supremacy under its king Narām-Sîn.14 This ambitious
king clearly emulated Akkadian tradition as is demonstrated by his choice of
the name Narām-Sîn, which, like that of his illustrious Akkadian namesake,
was preceded by the determinative for ‘god’ (dingir). As is stressed by Char-
pin, the Akkadization of scribal practice did not, however, follow the southern
Babylonian model represented by Babylon and Larsa,15 but seems to have
originated in Ešnunna itself. In Mari this modernizing of scribal practice in-
cluded changes in tablet shape, in paleography, in the syllabary, in the use of
ideograms, and in the notation of numbers and measures. According to Char-
pin, widespread literacy in Aššur suggests that the city firmly resisted such
scribal reforms, but it could equally be said that the correspondence of mer-
chants and scholarly production at the court represent two different aspects of
the scribal world. Traces of Akkadization are apparent in the inscriptions of
Šamšī-Adad I16 and in his diplomatic correspondence,17 which points either to
the presence of Ešnunnean scholars at his court or at least to the exposure
of his scribes to Ešnunnean scribal tradition. Akkadization implied not only
linguistic change but also the adoption of typical features of Old Akkadian
royal ideology, as I will demonstrate in this chapter.
As is clear from the process of Akkadization, Ešnunna played a central role
in the transmission of Sumero-Babylonian culture to the west, and, as I would
like to suggest, to the north. It is worth noting in this regard that the Akkadian
written at Old Babylonian Alalakh, which had a strong Hurrian presence,
shares features with Old Akkadian.18 Other linguistic features like the shift

12 Charpin and Durand 1997, 374.

13 Durand 1992, 123.
14 Charpin 1985b, 55 and fn. 35, 62, and 2012, 135.
15 Charpin 2003, 40 fn. 99; 2008, 153.
16 See the contraction of i+a > ê (Charpin 2012, 134), hitherto considered a feature of Mari
texts but which is equally present in Ešnunna and Aššur; see also Kouwenberg 2010, 14 stress-
ing a ‘northern kind of Old Babylonian.’
17 See the use of the anonymous sender formula for the king: umma bēlka-ma used by Šamšī-
Adad I in letters found at Šemšara, Eidem and Læssøe 2001, nos. 6‒25 and Charpin 2012, 128.
18 Whiting 1987, 6.
96 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

from n > l as attested in the Old Assyrian/Middle Assyrian month name kanwar-
ta/kalmarte have been considered a shared linguistic feature of Old Assyrian,
Hurrian, Proto-Hattic, and Hittite,19 supporting the idea that there was a com-
mon linguistic horizon in the north that might – with all due caution – reflect
a distinct cultural horizon.20 This chapter will therefore attempt to reveal how
the cities of northern Mesopotamia and northern Syria defined their own cul-
tural identity in light of their indebtedness to the Akkad model, both during
and in the period following the Akkadian empire.
The following investigation, rather than locating the beginnings of Assyri-
an ideological discourse at any one moment in history, seeks to lay bare the
dynamics of a longue durée inextricably bound up in Aššur’s various roles as
a trading station, an outpost at the frontiers of the empires of the Old Akkadian
and Ur III periods,21 a city state of the Old Assyrian period, and, under Šamšī-
Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE), an important cultic center in a large territorial state.

3.2 The Early History of the City of Aššur

Due to its strategic location as a gateway to the fertile alluvial plain of the
south and as a node in the trade route linking the Taurus region through Eš-
nunna with Der,22 the city of Aššur was one of the earliest prosperous settle-
ments in the north. This is evident in Aššur’s ceramic history, which begins in
the sixth or fifth millennium BCE while stone vessels date to the Uruk period
(fig. 14). By the later Early Dynastic period, Aššur’s economic wealth was based
on its commercial role and translated directly into a flourishing cult, as con-
firmed by the early Ištar temples.23 Finds from the early strata of the Ištar tem-
ple include an Early Dynastic seal that in its material composition and iconog-
raphy links Aššur with the regions of the Diyala and the Hamrin (fig. 15).24
Similarly, numerous praying figures25 and censers point to connections with
the cultural horizons of the Diyala region and Mari. The Early Dynastic finds
also included a relief plaque showing a female figure (fig. 16), perhaps Ištar,26

19 Hecker, GKT § 33a with additions by Hirsch 1972, 400; Deller 1985‒86, 43.
20 I state this with caution, as I am well aware of the danger of equating language, ethnicity,
and culture.
21 Neumann 1992.
22 Veenhof 2003b, 26.
23 Orlin 1970; Larsen 2000; Bär 2003.
24 Bär 2003, S 21, see pp. 131, 140 and pl. 43.
25 Bär 2003, 84‒96 (ED praying figures), 96‒101 (Akkad – Early OB) and pls. 1‒40.
26 Bär 2003, 164 and pl. 62.
 The Early History of the City of Aššur 97

Fig. 14: Steatite vessel with hero and lion grabbing ram from Ištar temple at Aššur
(Bär 2003, pl. 52; Assur 22408/VA 7887).
98 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Fig. 15: ED Seal with Pole (Bär 2003, pl. 44: S 21; Assur S 22342).

and a cylinder seal that in its iconography links Aššur with Tell Brak (fig. 17).27
A bead assemblage from the Archaic Ištar temple G with quadruple-spiral
beads and etched carnelian indicates contacts with the trade routes connecting
India to Anatolia “and closely resembles jewellery recovered from sites in
southern Mesopotamia.”28 The sealing of an entu-priestess is still another sign
of the importance of the Ištar temple (fig. 18) during the late Ur III period.
Remains of archaeological strata under the stratum dating to the reign of
Šamšī-Adad I in the area of the Old Palace confirm the existence of an official
building that might have functioned as a palace already by the late Early Dy-
nastic period or early Old Akkadian period at the latest.29 Old Akkadian tablets
carrying the excavation number Ass. 19492 confirm this dating; accordingly,
the earliest strata comprised several layers from the Akkad period and perhaps
one that dates back into the Early Dynastic period.30 Aššur is not mentioned
in the royal inscriptions of the kings of Akkad, who only refer to Subartu, the
later homeland of Assyria. This lack of written evidence is due to the fact that
the Old Akkadian texts from Aššur, which include economic and school texts,
have not yet been published.31 It should be mentioned, however, that some of
the school tablets represent word lists that contain not only Sumerograms but
also Akkadian words. This led Aage Westenholz to assume that they repre-

27 Bär 2003, S 25, 132 and pl. 44.

28 Westenholz 2005, 9.
29 Peddeand Lundström 2008, 27.
30 Miglus 1989 and Neumann 1997, 136. Hans Neumann provides a preliminary discussion of
all the Old Akkadian texts from Aššur in his article 1997.
31 Neumann 1997 and Hasselbach 2005, 5 fn. 31.
 The Early History of the City of Aššur 99

Fig. 16: Ištar Relief Plaque from Ištar Temple at Aššur (Bär 2003, pl. 62; Assur S 23106/
BM 118996).
100 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Fig. 17: ED Seal with Animals (Bär 2003, pl. 44, S 25; Assur 22543/VA 7963).

Fig. 18: Seal of NIN.DINGIR (Bär 2003, pl. 45, S 7; Assur 21977a/VA 8122).

sented the beginning of an Akkadian lexical tradition that was discontinued

when the Akkadian empire collapsed.32
The level directly beneath Šamšī-Adad I’s Old Palace, known as the court-
yard of the so-called Schotterhofbau, has been dated to the Old Assyrian period
on the basis of fragments of clay tablets, envelopes, seal impressions, and a
lentil-shaped exercise tablet. Bricks with the name of Erišum I have been recov-
ered from the mud debris separating this level from Šamšī-Adad I’s Old Pal-
ace,33 attesting to Erišum I’s intention to make a representational statement
regarding his function as ruler of the city. This casts a different light on the
nature of kingship in Aššur than does the correspondence of the merchants of
the Old Assyrian period. Inscriptions of Erišum have been also found in Kaneš

32 Neumann 1997, 137 with reference to Westenholz 1974‒1977, 106.

33 Miglus 1989 and Pedersén 1989 and Dercksen 2004, 5‒7.
 The Early History of the City of Aššur 101

and must probably be seen in the context of other school tablets found at the
merchant center. Enough school tablets have been found to assume some kind
of scribal training that must have occurred in some kind of cooperation with
the one performed in the city of Aššur as attested by a duplicate.34 The texts
from Kaneš included literary texts, a love charm, a Lamaštu incantation and
other incantations, letters and other texts related to commercial activities.35
All of this archaeological data implies that Aššur functioned as a trade hub
very early on, connecting Elam, Babylonia, and Anatolia and facilitating the
long-range exchange of precious metals and textiles. Aššur occupied this posi-
tion even before the Old Assyrian period, when precisely such a role is securely
documented in the archives of Kaneš/Kültepe. The antiquity of Aššur’s role as
a center of trade points to firmly established political and economic structures.
In turn, Aššur’s long history of trade explains the close relationship between
the god Aššur and the City Hall (bīt ālim), the function of the latter being pri-
marily economic,36 as is clear from the Old Assyrian letters.
During the Old Akkadian and Ur III periods Aššur’s phases of independ-
ence were temporary and short-lived, and some elements of the early inscrip-
tions reflect southern traditions. Nevertheless, the choices made by the local
rulers or governors of Aššur regarding the introduction and fostering of partic-
ular cults and the choice of specific titles in their celebratory inscriptions sug-
gest their active participation in and reception of an existing supra-regional
cultural discourse. The same evidence also indicates a deliberate attempt by
the rulers of Aššur to define their own identity on their own terms, rather than
a passive copying of existing traditions from the south.
Judging by the scale of investment in building projects in Aššur during the
Old Assyrian period and during the reign of Šamšī-Adad I – notably in struc-
tures like the Old Palace, the city walls, and the temples in Aššur – the city
appears to have played a major role as cultural metropolis and seat of kingship
during the Old Babylonian period, though this view has been questioned re-
cently on the grounds that Ekallatum might have been Šamšī-Adad I’s base of
operation before he chose Šubat-Enlil – formerly Šekhna – as his residence.37
It seems, however, that it was only toward the end of his reign that Šamšī-
Adad I divided his territorial state into three blocs administered from three

34 Hecker 1996.
35 Hecker 1993.
36 Dercksen 2004, 12 f.
37 Charpin/Durand 1997; Ziegler 2002. Note that Daduša in his stele calls him ‘king of Ekalla-
tum’; Ekallatum further occurs as reference point in the prophecy ARMT 26 196: “You will
meet your appointed time just like Ekallatum.”
102 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

strategic sites: Šubat-Enlil, his own newly founded capital in the Hābūr Basin,
Ekallatum, located just north of Aššur, and Mari, an important trade station on
the route from Babylonia to northwestern Syria. As discussed further below,
Aššur’s Old Palace and some of its most important temples were the beneficia-
ries of major renovation work under Šamšī-Adad I, implying that in the begin-
ning of his reign Aššur must have been more than merely a ceremonial center
for this king.
Investigating Assyrian ideological discourse from a diachronic perspective
reveals its complexity: the future Assyrian empire may have grown out of a
city state, but this city also served as an important outpost of the Akkadian
and Ur III empires.
During the early periods of Aššur’s existence, the city of Nineveh – located
further north on the east bank of the Tigris at the site of a key river crossing –
seems to have had a strongly Hurrianized population and been largely inde-
pendent of the south. In recent years the question of Akkadian control of Nin-
eveh has been disputed, and even Maništušu’s building activities in the Ištar
temple of Nineveh have been cast into doubt.38 The sparse textual evidence
from the Ur III period, including the visit of the local king Tiš-atal of Nineveh
to Ešnunna39 during the reign of Šu-Sîn and expenditures recorded in Ur for
messengers or ambassadors from the states of Šimanum and Nineveh,40 argue
in favor of Nineveh’s geo-political status as a Hurrian principality. This percep-
tion is reinforced by the status of the Hurrian Ištar-Šauška as Nineveh’s patron
deity, which further marks its cultural identity as Hurrian. If Nineveh was iden-
tical with the city of Ninet, a sanctuary of a goddess Eštar that is mentioned in
the archives of Mari, then this same goddess was also venerated in the palace
of Mari at the end of the reign of Yasmah-Adad.41 Nineveh’s strategic location
and importance as a former seat of Hurrian rulers made it a highly desirable
target for the expansionist vision of Šamšī-Adad I.
The formation of the Assyrian state and the development of its cultural
discourse in general and its royal ideology in particular were based on local as
well as ‘supra-regional’ political, economic, and social structures. Nowhere is
this complex discourse more apparent than in the attempt to combine multiple
different traditions in the Assyrian King List (AKL), which begins with the ‘17
kings who lived in tents’ – thus connecting the city with an Amorite past an-

38 Westenholz 2005.
39 Whiting 1976, (TA 1931‒T615).
40 Watson 1986.
41 For the discussion of and bibliography on the identification of the two cities see Ziegler
2005, 19 f.
 Socio-Political Organization: North versus South 103

chored in a more mobile lifestyle – and concomitantly appropriating Aššur as

the historic seat of kingship.42

3.3 Socio-Political Organization: North versus South

When approaching the subject of Assyrian identity, it is necessary to be mind-
ful of the fact that some of the differences in the social organization of northern
and southern Mesopotamia reflect actual ecological differences between the
two regions.43 Although kings in northern Mesopotamia and in northwestern
Syria controlled much wealth and a large expanse of land, their power was
“balanced by the council of the city elders and family members, in a pattern
also characteristic of a ‘tribal type of society.’”44 Such patterns are evident in
the various Early Dynastic archives of Ebla, Nagar/Tell Brak, and Nabada/Tell
Beydar in the Hābūr Basin. Furthermore, it seems that the polities that formed
part of the kingdom of Nagar remained to some extent economically autono-
mous and were responsible only for certain tasks, such as feeding the donkeys
of the ruler when he travelled through the area. The retention of economic
autonomy is additionally apparent in the fact that the leaders of these smaller
polities could receive gifts directly from a foreign ruler; gift-giving was not
always channeled through the king of Nagar for redistribution.45 During the
Early Dynastic period there were several major centers in the Jazira, among
them ancient Šekhna/Tell Leilan and Urkeš/Tell Mozan, which controlled poli-
ties in competition with Nagar.
Although no texts from the Early Dynastic period survive from Aššur, the
later Old Assyrian archives of the 19th and 18th centuries BCE attest to a social
organization comparable to that of other northern Mesopotamian and northern
Syrian polities, as there is a similar distribution of power between the city as-
sembly (ālum), the eponym (limmum), and the city ruler (rubāʾum), the latter
a title also used by the rulers of Ešnunna. In this framework, the occasionally
attested ‘Elders’ (šībūtu) were probably part of the city assembly or represented
it in some capacity,46 while the ruler was the primus inter pares and ‘overseer’
(PA/waklum) of the community of the city.47 Judicial and presumably other ad-

42 For a discussion of this list see below chapter 3.5.3.1.

43 See Liverani 1993, 3 who cautions us against crude environmental explanations including
the ethnic one with regard to the empire of Akkad.
44 Stein 2004, 74.
45 Sallaberger 2004, 67.
46 On the elders reflecting collective leadership in Syria see Fleming 2004, 190‒200.
47 Cifola 1995, 9.
104 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

ministrative affairs were overseen in close cooperation between the ruler and
the city assembly. The city assembly was the highest judicial authority and
functioned as a court of law, but could also make political decisions relating
to trade and to the distribution of costs for the fortification of the city. It could
issue commands (awātum ‘word’) and some of its decrees could turn into gen-
eral rulings (awâtum, pl.) which were then inscribed on a stela (awât na-
ruʾāʾim).48
Old Assyrian letters clearly indicate that political leadership in Old Assyri-
an Aššur was shared between various bodies, but this is not true for the royal
inscriptions of that period, which represent the king in his exclusive position
with regard to the god Aššur. The divergent evidence for Aššur’s political orga-
nization reflected in the letters of merchant families on the one hand and in
the royal inscriptions on the other demonstrates that the ruler’s ideological
claim of a monopoly over executive power cannot be accepted prima facie.
Instead, as already pointed out in Chapter One, the king relied on a host of
courtiers, officials, scribes, and diviners to ensure effective governance.49
The Archaic List of Professions from Uruk50 reveals a complex social struc-
ture, yet the political organization known for Aššur is not observable in the
Sumerian city states of the south. In southern Mesopotamia, palace and temple
both represented wealthy, economically privileged households, as is demon-
strated by their architecture and administrative documents. Even cooperative
institutional bodies, as represented in the archaic city seals indicating regular
deliveries to the temple of Inanna in Uruk during the Jemdet Nasr period, do
not necessarily imply the independence of the temple from the ruler in the city
of Uruk.51 In the Archaic List of Professions, the namešda sits atop the social
ladder followed by a vizier, indicating an early tendency toward a strongly
pyramidic social structure.52 During the Early Dynastic III period, Enmetena
and Uru-ʾinimgina, rulers of the city state of Lagaš, decree freedom from debt
slavery and corvée labor.53 These decrees point to centralized control, and the
Reforms of Uru-ʾinimgina indeed make clear that the palace controlled, or at
least had access to, the resources of the temple.54 As such, southern Mesopota-

48 Veenhof 2003a, 74.

49 See Chapter 1.4.
50 Englund, Nissen, and Damerow 1993.
51 Matthews 1993; Steinkeller 2002.
52 nám-GIŠ.ŠITA to be read nám-éšda which according to the canonical series Lú = ša means
‘kingship,’ Englund & Nissen 1993; Wilcke 2007, 18‒19.
53 FAOS 5/1 Ent. 79 iii 10‒vi 6 and FAOS 5/1 Ukg. 4‒5.
54 Whether Uruʾinimgina’s reforms actually implicated the reestablishment of divine owner-
ship over former royal estates is debated and in my view unlikely, Wilcke 2003, 141‒143, see
also Hruška 1973 and Edzard 1974.
 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 105

mian society appears to have been strongly hierarchical with power concen-
trated in the hands of a single ruler already in the Early Dynastic period. The
essential roles and key metaphors that would govern royal ideology in the fu-
ture history of the ancient Near East had at this point been established in
southern Mesopotamia: the king as war leader, the king as hunter, and the
king as caretaker of the temple.
Differences in social organization influenced the early monumental and
ideological self-representation of kings, which had not yet emerged in third
millennium northern Mesopotamia. Instead, above ground elite burials involv-
ing numerous people emphasize the importance of lineage in the north, typical
of a society organized along tribal lines.55 Because urbanism was a secondary
development in northern Mesopotamia that arose in response to the growth of
cities in the south, “northern kings borrowed the ideological trappings and
administrative technologies of southern kingship and southern state socie-
ties – palaces, cylinder seals, writing, and royal iconography – although all
these were translated into local forms and presumably into local systems of
meaning as well.”56

3.4 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur

No inscriptions from the Early Dynastic period have been recovered in Aššur
and only a few inscriptions hint at the ideological discourse that developed
during the Old Akkadian period (ca. 2350‒2200 BCE). This group includes vo-
tive inscriptions, building inscriptions, and inscriptions on sealings, which,
beyond the titulary, provide little historical information. Nevertheless, these
few inscriptions reveal the roots of an Assyrian ideological discourse predicat-
ed on the establishment of alliances with divine figures, particularly with the
god Aššur and the goddess Ištar in her various hypostases.
Among the early building inscriptions is a votive plaque originally written
by Ititi that was secondarily placed in the Ištar temple built by Tukultī-Ninur-
ta I. In this inscription, Ititi reports that he dedicated the votive plaque in ques-
tion to the goddess Ištar as part of the war booty he acquired following his
victory over Gasur. Accordingly, Ititi’s inscription happens to be early evidence
of Aššur’s interaction – in this case by means of military confrontation – with
a city that formed part of the Hurrian cultural horizon but might at that time

55 Porter 2002a and 2002b.

56 Stein 2004, 72.
106 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

have been dominated by Akkadians, as administrative records refer to it as an

Old Akkadian garrison.57

Inscription of Ititi58
1 i-ti-ti Ititi,
2 PA the ruler,
3 DUMU i-nin-la-ba son of Ininlaba,
4 in ša₁₀-la-ti (8) dedicated (this object) from the booty
5 ga-surₓ(SAG).KI of Gasur
6 a-na to
d
7 INANNA the goddess Ištar.
8 A.MU.RU

This inscription points to the importance of the goddess Ištar to the ruler. Ititi’s
description of himself as ‘son of Ininlaba,’ however, also reveals an interest in
genealogy and in identification with individual predecessors. Ininlaba’s
name – ‘Innin/Ištar is a lion’ – in turn demonstrates that the strong bond be-
tween the ruler and the goddess Ištar enjoyed a long pedigree. Indeed, the
name Ininlaba is “also found in documents from contemporary Gasur, and par-
alleled in other Old Akkadian names such as Aštar-laba, Šî-laba, and Šî-labʾat,
meaning ‘Ištar is a lion’, ‘She is a lion’, and ‘She is a lioness.’”59 Ititi’s genea-
logical reference implies a claim to rule based on ancestral line and thus indi-
cates a royal outlook that is very different from the one advanced in the Sumeri-
an King List in the south – of which one fragment dates to the Ur III period 60 –
in which particular stress is laid on the rotation of hegemonic rule among the
city states rather than on the rise and fall of individual dynasties.61
Ititi’s title in the votive plaque inscription is pa, which used to be read as
an abbreviation of the Sumerian title pa.te.si = ensi₂ = Akkadian iššiʾakkum, a
designation that referred to a provincial governor under the kings of Akkad. In
Aššur, the title ensi₂, however, only occurs in the construct with the name of
the god Aššur, and so, in Ititi’s inscription the reading pa = ugula/waklum is
to be preferred.62 This title served as the self-designation of the rulers of Aššur

57 Durand 1977 and Michalowski 1986, 139 assumed that during the Old Akkadian period the
Hurrian presence might still have been confined to the eastern Tigridian region.
58 RIMA 1, A.0.1001.1: Ititi PA DUMU I-nin-la-ba in śa-la-ti Ga-sur₁₄ki a-na dINANNA A.MU.RU.
The plaque originally belonged to the layers G or G/F of the early Ištar Temples, see most
recently Meinhold 2009, 20 with previous discussion.
59 Lambert 2005b, 36.
60 Steinkeller 2003; see further Michalowski 1983; Wilcke 1989; Glassner 2005; for a recension
from Tell Leilan see Vincente 1995.
61 Wilcke 1989.
62 Veenhof 2003b, 38.
 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 107

as long as the city state of Aššur was independent.63 The title ugula/waklum
denoted the ruler’s status relative to the community of Aššur, qualifying him
as ‘administrator of the City’ and as ‘overseer of the community’, while the title
ensi₂/iššiakkum, which is attested in official seals and inscriptions, referred to
the ruler’s relationship with the god Aššur. The title ugula/waklum was still in
use under Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264 BCE) and Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE),
and inscriptions of the latter show that the title šid/iššiʾakku could be used
interchangeably in the same context.64 Although use of the title ensi₂ in the
political arena indicated dependency on the Akkadian overlord during the Old
Akkadian period, the title first appears as a designation for the city ruler in
the inscriptions of the kings of pre-Sargonic Lagaš, a city-state in southern
Mesopotamia that encompassed a number of distinct towns.65 In Lagaš, the
administrative character of the title ensi₂ is apparent in the epithet ensi₂-gal-
d
Ningirsu, which refers to the king’s relationship with the patron deity. The
same is true for the epithet ‘given power by Enlil’ (á-sum-ma-den-líl), which is
found in the inscriptions of Enannatum. Although Eannatum and Entemena
refer to themselves exclusively with the title ensi₂, they relate that they ob-
tained kingship (nam-lugal) from a deity.66 Toward the end of the third millen-
nium the ruler Gudea continued to designate himself “steward” (ensi₂) of La-
gaš, stressing his stewardship vis-à-vis the patron deity of the city.67 The ideo-
logical discourse of these kings of Lagaš is typical of the Tigridian area and
suggests that Lagaš forms part of a greater region of cultural unity that stretch-
es north from Lagaš to Ešnunna and Aššur. This view is supported both by the
exclusion of the dynasty of Lagaš from the Sumerian King List and by the fact
that the scholars of Lagaš were sufficiently self-confident to compose their own
king list.68
After he brought the city states of the south under his control, Lugalzagesi
referred to himself as ensi₂-gal den-líl.69 This epithet was then adopted by king
Sargon of Akkad, who defeated Lugalzagesi and built the empire of Akkad.70

63 About 1750 BCE the title PA + GN used by the rulers of Hana, ugula Ha-na, see Podany
2002, 33.
64 RIMA 1, A.0.76.27 and 28 (Adn. I) and RIMA 1, A.0.77.26‒27.
65 For the territory of the city state of Lagaš as expressed in cultic dependencies see Selz
1995, 294 ff. On the titles ensi₂ and lugal see further my discussion in Chapter 5.1.
66 Heimpel 1992, 7 f.
67 Winter 1992, 18; Glassner 1993.
68 Sollberger 1967.
69 RIME 1, E1.14.20.1 i 15‒16 ensi₂.gal den-líl. For a detailed discussion of the title see Wang
2011, 132‒134.
70 RIME 2, E2.1.1.1: 2 [lugal] [ag-ge-dè.KI] and 8‒9
108 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

The epithet ensi₂ dEnlil thus expressed the king’s direct accountability to Enlil,
the chief god of the Sumerian pantheon, and did not entail that the ruler who
adopted it relinquish the title ‘king’ (lugal) in relation to a particular city or to
the land in general (lugal kalam-ma).71 This same notion can be observed for
the cities of Ešnunna and Aššur, where the city ruler was designated as the
‘vice-regent’ or ‘steward’ (ensi₂/iššiʾakku) of the patron deity of the city. In Aš-
šur, the ruler was vice-regent of the god Aššur while Aššur himself, written
(d)Aššur(ki), was called ‘king’ (lugal/šarrum).
In Ešnunna, on the other hand, the ruler is referred to as ‘beloved of Tiš-
pak, steward of Ešnunna’ (nāram dTišpak iššiʾak Ašnunna ki). This theocratic
approach to kingship is further apparent in the fact that political authority
continued to be associated with the epithet ‘House of Tišpak and the Prince,’72
used to refer to both the god and the king. The broad similarity between the
royal discourse of the rulers of Ešnunna and the rulers of Aššur is especially
clear in the wording of their respective sealings. Indeed, the sealings of Šu-
ilīya, a local ruler of Ešnunna at the time of the Ur III king Ibbi-Sîn, and of
Kirikiri, ruler of Ešnunna during the early Isin period, attribute the epithets
‘strong king’ and ‘king of the four banks’ to the god Tišpak. This is interesting
because these epithets are known from the titularies of the kings of Akkad, but
are here applied to a deity with whom the king is depicted in a subordinate
relationship:73

Seal Inscription of Šu-iliya74

 1 [d]Tišpak Tišpak,
 2 [luga]l da-núm strong [kin]g,
 3 [luga]l ma-at [Wa]-ri-im [kin]g of the land [Wa]rum,
 4 lugal king
 5 [ki-ib]-ra-tim of the [f]our [qua]rters,
 6 [a]r-ba-im
 7 ˹d˺šu-ì-lí-a Šu-ilīya,
 8 ˹DUMU(?)˺-šú his [son?],
 9 na-ra-a[m] belov[ed] of the goddesses
d
10 Be-la-at-t[e]-ra-ba-an Bēlat-T[e]raban

71 RIME 1, E1.14.20: i 4‒5 lugal-unu.KI-ga lugal ˹kalam-ma˺.

72 For an alliance between the House of Tišpak and the king of Mari, see Charpin 1991, 156;
Charpin/Ziegler 2003, 39 and 49 f. This custom induced Dominique Charpin to assume that the
title ÌR Tišpak indeed designated high officials of the king, Charpin 1990, 76 f. fn. 115 with
reference to Charpin 1985a, 63‒64 quoting a letter from the diviner Asqudum.
73 Schwemer 2001, 351 reads the title of the king as ugulawhile Frayne 1997, 435 prefers the
reading dumu?.
74 RIME 3/2.3.1.1
 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 109

d
11 Be-la-at-š[uh]-n[ir] and Bēlat-š[uh]nir,
d
12 ˹iškur˺ [of Adad]
13 ù d˹x x˺-[x] and [GN]
14 i-š[i(?)-…] …
15 mu-uš-te-[em?-ki? KUR?] unif[ier of the land?].

Note further the title muštemki mātim, which was later revived by Šamšī-
Adad I.

Seal Inscription of Kirikiri75

d
 1 Tišpak O god Tišpak,
 2 LUGAL da-núm mighty king,
 3 LUGAL ma-at wa-ri-im king of the land Warûm
 4 ki-ri-ki-ri – Kirikiri,
 5‒6 ÉNSI áš-nun-na.KI steward of Ešnunna,
 7‒8 a-na bi-la-la-ma (10)presented (this seal) to Bilalama,
 9 DUMU.NI-šu his son.
10 i-qi₄-iš

Kirikiri’s son Bilalama expresses the relationship between god and ruler differ-
ently in the standard inscription of his stamped bricks, in which he emphasizes
Tišpak’s divine support as the basis of his empowerment. This position is artic-
ulated by means of the trope of love, conveying a relationship of mutual obliga-
tion between the deity and the king:

Stamped Brick Inscription of Bilalama of Ešnunna76

 1 bi-la-lama Bilalama,
 2 na-ra-am beloved
d
 3 Tišpak of the god Tišpak,
 4 ÉNSI steward
 5 áš-nun-na.KI of Ešnunna.

Ešnunna represents the southernmost point of Hurrian penetration, which

might explain Tišpak’s position as the patron deity of Ešnunna. The Hurrian
deity Tišpak, associated with the weather god Tešub, had replaced the local
deity Ninazu as early as the Old Akkadian Period.77
Several seal impressions of a certain Ṣilulu, perhaps to be equated with
Sulilu of the Assyrian King List, were found at Kültepe and demonstrate a theo-

75 RIME 4, E4.5.2.1. The same wording or similar wording is attested in the sealing of Uṣur-
awassu (RIME 4, E4.5.5), Azuzum (RIME 4, E4.5.6.2), Ur-Ninmar (RIME 4, E4.5.7.2).
76 RIME 4, E4.5.3.3.
77 Black and Green 1992, 178.
110 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

cratic understanding of rulership in the Assyrian cultural horizon that is simi-

lar to that of Ešnunna. These seal impressions also emphasize the equation of
the city as a community with the eponymous god through the writing Aššur.KI
instead of dAššur and the positioning of the king’s filiation.

Seal Inscription of Ṣilulu78

1 a-šùr.KI Aššur
2 LUGAL is king,
3 ṣi-lu-lu Ṣilulu
4 ÉNSI a-šùr.KI is steward of the city of Aššur,
5 DUMU da-ki-ki son of Dakiki,
6 NIMGIR URU a-šùr.KI herald of the city of Aššur (erasure).

The imagery of Ṣilulu’s seal is interesting insofar as it shows a hero-like figure

trampling over a naked enemy, which is reminiscent of the imagery of Naram-
Sîn’s victory stele.79 Whether the trampling figure represents a divinity – per-
haps Aššur – or the ruler is hard to determine. Be that as it may, the imagery
differs clearly from later Old Assyrian royal seals that adopted the ‘presentation
scene’ typical of the Ur III period, albeit with a probable change in meaning,
as the ruler was represented as the standing figure being led by a lamma-deity
into the presence of the seated Aššur.80
In line with Old Assyrian tradition,81 Šamšī-Adad I also chose this kind of
formula to express the direct bond between Aššur and the ruler in his own
seal.82 Šamšī-Adad I’s interest in publicizing his genealogy should also be not-
ed in this respect:

Seal of Šamšī-Adad I83

d
1 UTU-ši-dIŠ[KUR] Šamšī-Ad[ad],
2 [n]a-ra-am d[a]-šu[r₄] beloved of the god Aššur,
3 [P]A.TE.S[I] steward of
d
4 a-šur₄ (the city of?) Aššur,
5 [mār] i-la-kab-ka-bu-ú [son of] Ila-kabkabû.

The inscriptions on Šamšī-Adad I’s seals are typically Tigridian in their style,
but the iconography of the audience scene in the seals is not. On his seals,

78 RIMA 1, A.0.27.1.
79 Eppihimer 2013, 42 fig. 8.
80 Eppihimer 2013. During the Ur III period the seated figure represented the king and the
figure standing before him represented one of his officials, who was also the owner of the
relevant seal.
81 Charpin 1984, 51; Charpin/Durand 1997, 371.
82 Sealings of which have been found on various envelopes in the palace of Mari.
83 RIMA 1, A.0.39.10.
 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 111

Fig. 19: Seal of Šamšī-Adad I (Porada 1980, fig. III-1 a).

Šamšī-Adad I is depicted in Babylonian style with the typical Babylonian

brimmed cap and beard, dressed in a long robe that leaves his right shoulder
bare;84 this imagery is reminiscent of that employed by his younger contempo-
rary Hammurabi. The combination of Tigridian inscription and Babylonian ico-
nography on Šamšī-Adad I’s seals reflects his broad geographical and cultural
horizons with his scholars being conversant in a variety of traditions (fig. 19).
In Aššur itself, the trope of the city ruler being the ‘vice-regent’ or ‘steward’
(ensi₂/iššiʾakku) of the god Aššur – expressing the king’s accountability to the
patron deity – was firmly established by the time of Šamšī-Adad I and dominat-
ed Assyrian ideology in various forms until the very end of the Assyrian em-
pire.85 Actual kingship was reserved for the god Aššur.
The titularies and inscriptions of the Old Assyrian rulers attest to the con-
tracting of alliances with the divine world and are a direct reflection of the
introduction of the cult of particular deities. Whether this cultic transfer oc-
curred at the initiative of the Akkadian king or at the behest of the local ruler
of Aššur cannot, of course, be determined. The integration of a specifically
bellicose Ištar-hypostasis into the cult of Aššur, however, likely had conse-
quences for cultic hierarchies and had a corresponding impact on ideological
discourse. Of particular interest is an inscription written on a fragment of an
alabastron dedicated to the Akkadian Ištar-Annunītu, indicating that her cult

84 Özgüç 1980, 65; Tunca 1989.

85 Interestingly, during the period of the kings of Hana in the Middle Euphrates region the
title iššiʾakku also appears in the seal of the kings Iggid-Lim and Isih-Dagan, here in combina-
tion with the god Dagan: RN [pa].te.si dDa-[gan] [l]ugal kur Ha-[na], see Podany 2002, no. 11
and no. 12; adopted by Hammurabi when he conquered the region, see no. 14.
112 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

had been introduced to the city of Aššur.86 The presence of Akkadians – and,
consequently, Akkadian culture – is further supported by the discovery of a
spearhead inscribed with the name of an individual who served under the Ak-
kadian king Maništušu (2269‒2255 BCE).87 This spearhead was placed second-
arily in the foundation of Ištar temple D of the Old Assyrian period.
Ištar in her various aspects remained central to Assyrian rulership. During
the Ur III period at the latest, the cult of Bēlat-ekallim, a goddess until then
broadly venerated in southern Mesopotamia and otherwise known by her Su-
merian equivalent Nin-egal, was introduced in Aššur under Zarriqum,88 the
local governor of the Ur III king:

Inscription of Zarriqum89
 1 É dNIN-É.GAL-lim The temple of the goddess Bēlat-ekallim,
 2 be-la-ti-šu his lady,
 3 a-na ba-la-aṭ for the life
d
 4 AMAR-dZUEN of Amar-Sîn,
 5 DA x the strong man,
 6‒7 LUGAL [ŠEŠ.UNUG].KI-MA king of [Ur(?)]
 8 ù LUGAL and king
 9‒10 ki-ib-ra-tim ar-ba-im of the four quarters,
11 za-ri-qum has Zarriqum,
12 GÌR.ARAD governor
d
13 A-šùrki of Aššur
14 ARAD-su his (Amar-Sîn’s) servant,
15 a-na ba-la-ṭì-šu built for his (own) life.
16 i-pu-uš

Like other early inscriptions, this votive plaque was found in a secondary con-
text in the Ištar-temple built by Tukultī-Ninurta I. Because the later sanctuaries
dedicated to Ištar were dedicated to Ištar-Aššurītu, it has been assumed that
Zarriqum’s building represented a chapel within that temple rather than an
independent temple in its own right.90 Although the Zarriqum inscription is
only a votive plaque and conveys nothing about Bēlat-ekallim’s actual role,
the presence of her cult in Aššur is central to understanding Assyrian ideology.
Bēlat-ekallim’s Sumerian hypostasis Nin-egal is known to have been equated
with Inanna and played an important role in determining the destiny of the

86 RIME 2, E2.0.0.1005 […] a-[na] dINANNA an-nu-ni-tum A.MU.RU.

87 RIME 2, E2.1.3.2002 = RIMA 1, A.0.1002.2001: Ma-an-iś-tu-śu LUGAL KIŠ A-zu-zu ˹ÌR˺-su a-
˹na˺˹d˺Be-al-SI-SI A.MU.RU.
88 For a recent survey on Zarriqum’s career see Michalowski 2009, 150 with bibliography.
89 After RIMA 1, A.0.1003.2001.
90 Meinhold 2009, 117.
 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 113

king.91 The Sumerian ceremonial name É.KI.NAM = É ašar šīmāti attested in the
Aššur Directory (Götteradressbuch)92 is reminiscent of this particular function,
which Ištar assumed for the Assyrian king. The fact that Zarriqum designates
himself as Amar-Sîn’s servant indicates that during this period Aššur was de-
pendent on the Ur III court.93
The articulation of a programmatic royal discourse focusing on the ruler’s
relationship with the gods – primarily Ištar and Aššur – is explicit in the in-
scriptions of the Puzur-Aššur dynasty of the Old Assyrian period. In his report
on the construction of a temple for Ištar the ruler Ilu-šumma introduces himself
with the following title:

Inscription of Ilušumma94
 1 DINGIR-šu-ma Ilu-šumma,
 2 ÉNSI steward
 3 a-šu-ur.KI of Aššur,
 4 na-ra-am beloved
d
 5 a-šùr of Aššur
 6 ù dINANNA and Ištar,
 7 [mēra ša]lim-a-ḫu-um [son of Ša]lim-ahum,
 8 ÉNSI steward
 9 a-šu-ur.KI of Aššur,
10 a-na dINANNA (13) has built a temple for
11 NIN.A.NI Ištar, his lady,
12 a-na ba-la-ṭì-šu for his life.
13 É i-pu-uš

The adoption of the title ‘beloved of Ištar’ is clear evidence of the appropriation
of Akkadian ideology in the titulary of the kings of Aššur. In Assyria, the con-
cept of being the beloved of a certain god underwent a local transformation
through its application to the local patron deity and its association with an
alliance that bound the divine world with the king. Votive plaques from the
preceding Ur III period dedicated to Ištar-Aššurītu95 indicate that it was proba-
bly during that time that the deity identified with the temple was redefined and
Assyrianized: the Akkadian Ištar-Anunitu became the Assyrian Ištar-Aššurītu.

91 Behrens 1998.
92 Menzel 1981, GAB 165.
93 I follow here Sallaberger 2007, 434 and Barjamovic 2011, n. 15 rather than Michalowski
2009, who assumes that Aššur was a vassal state of the Ur III ruler.
94 RIMA 1, A.0.32.1:1‒13. For a detailed summary of the building history of the early Ištar
temples in Aššur see Meinhold 2009.
95 Meinhold 2009, 26.
114 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

As the Ur III state weakened progressively toward the end of the third mil-
lennium BCE, the opportunity arose for Aššur to revive its commercial role as
a hub between Elam, Babylonia, and Anatolia, competing for primacy in this
capacity with Ešnunna and Mari as well as Isin and Larsa. Aššur’s wide-ran-
ging contacts are especially apparent in the inscriptions of Ilu-šumma and his
successor Erišum I. One of Ilu-šumma’s two surviving inscriptions introduces
three motifs central to royal ideology: the king as the overseer of the irrigation
system essential for the subsistence of the city, the king’s measurement of
house-plots for the people of Aššur, and the king’s function as guardian of
Aššur’s position in inter-regional trade. With the exception of the motif of the
king as custodian of the irrigation system, which was reintroduced during the
Middle Assyrian period, these motifs were typical only for the Old Assyrian
period and subsequently abandoned.96

A façade (and) new wall I constructed and subdivided house-plots

for my city. The god Aššur opened for me two springs in Mount Abih
and I made bricks for the wall by these two springs. The water of one
spring flowed down to the Aušum Gate (while) the water of the
other spring flowed down to the Wertum Gate.
I established freedom of the Akkadians and their children.
I purified their copper. I established their freedom from the border
of the marshes and Ur and Nippur, Awal, and Kismar, Dēr of the
god Ištaran, as far as the city (Aššur). (Meaning: I freed the Akkadians
and their children from forced labor and cleared them of their obligations
to pay copper as tax).97

While Ilu-šumma is the first ruler of Aššur to refer to geographical areas be-
yond Aššur, these references do not indicate Assyrian territorial control.
Rather, they bespeak Aššur’s efforts to control the trade in tin, copper, and
premium woolen textiles. Tin probably came from Iran and was supplied via
Elam, copper originated in Oman and reached Aššur via Babylon, and premi-
um woolen textiles were generally produced in southern Mesopotamia.
The inscriptions of Ilu-šumma’s successor, King Erišum, attest to signifi-
cant building activities in the area of both the Aššur temple and the Adad
temple. Copies of two inscriptions, the originals of which were placed in the
Aššur temple, survive in Kaneš on clay tablets.98 They are vital to understand-
ing the administration of justice in the city of Aššur, which was performed at
the mušlālum-gate in the presence of the seven Divine Judges. Of particular

96 Larsen 1976, 63‒80; Dercksen 2004, 17‒18.

97 RIMA 1, A.0.32.2:30‒65.
98 RIMA 1, A.0.33.1.
 Third Millennium Ideological Discourse in Aššur 115

interest is the textual insertion that links the two inscriptions. This insertion
lists the Seven Judges, reflecting the emphasis in both of the inscriptions on
the construction of the Step Gate and on its judicial function as a site for giving
testimony and speaking the oath. Somehow, this tradition of the judges of the
Aššur temple, established at the latest under Erišum, survived in the much
later Götteraddressbuch99 and fragmentarily in the tākultu/banquet ritual, thus
attesting to the longevity of certain traditions:100

Erišum Götteraddressbuch (GAB)

(1) Mēšarum (‘Justice’) (34) Mīšaru
(2) Išme-karāb (‘He heard the prayer’) (39) Išme-karāba
(3) Ṣê-raggu (‘Get Out, Criminal!’) (40) Hip-raggu (‘Break the Criminal’)
(4) Ulli-mēšaram (‘He Extolled Justice’) (34) (Distorted?’ to:) Il-Mīšarum
(5) Ašur-ḫablam (‘Watch Over the (36) Ašra-killa (‘Watch Over the
Downtrodden!’) Detention’)
(6) Pûšu-kēn (‘His Speech is just’) (37) Pîšu-kēna
(7) Išmēlum (‘God Has Heard’) (38) Išmēla
(40) Il-padâ (‘God (of the) Sparing’)
(40) Uṣur-pîšunu (‘Guard Their Word’)
(41) Tišamme-pê-mukarribe (‘Listen to
the Word of the Supplicant’)

The above survey of the royal inscriptions from third millennium Aššur demon-
strates that the rulers of that city experimented with their self-representation.
On the one hand, there was an emphasis on the central notion of accountabili-
ty to the gods, which was primarily expressed through the king’s status as
steward of the god Aššur. On the other hand, attempts were made to focus on
the ruler’s direct interaction with the community of Aššur through such actions
as ensuring an adequate water supply for the city, assigning living space to the
people within Aššur’s urban landscape, and supervising trade. Tropes centered
on the ruler’s relationship with his subjects reflect the position of Aššur’s ruler
as a primus inter pares within the city community, a notion that vanished with
Šamšī-Adad I and his ambitions for building a territorial state.
Ištar’s central role in the cultic life of Aššur is evident by the Early Dynastic
period, notably in the discovery in the Ištar temple of a relief plaque that de-
picts her naked in a frontal position, which is similar to her representation on
the much later Hasanlu bowl.101 Finds from the Sumerian period in the same

99 Menzel 1981, T 148‒49.

100 K. 252 v 1‒8 = III R 66 v 1‒8, Frankena, Tākultu, 6; see also Krebernik 2007.
101 Standing naked on a lion dragon and thus exposing her sexuality in order to mesmerize
the monsters, this representation is reminiscent of the Song of Ullikummi, some form of which
116 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

temple prove that Ištar’s cult preceded the cult of the god Aššur by at least a
millennium. In the Akkad period, texts hint at Ištar’s importance in the empow-
erment of the king, a trope that was later intensified through her adoption of
the voice of Aššur and her transmission of divine commands in the form of
oracles. Other tropes, including that of the king as protector of trade, simply
disappear. Šamšī-Adad I’s vision of an Upper Mesopotamian kingdom resulted
in a thorough reinvention of ideological discourse. Because Šamšī-Adad I’s ide-
ological discourse incorporated all of the elements essential to an ideology of
universal control, it became the blueprint for subsequent kings. Warfare re-
placed trade as a means for obtaining the surplus resources required to support
extensive building programs in Aššur and the other Assyrian capitals, as well
as for sustaining Assyria’s growing bureaucratic apparatus.

3.5 Šamšī-Adad I and Daduša

3.5.1 Joining Forces to Conquer the Eastern Tigridian Region: The Impact of
Politics on the Historiographic Discourse of Daduša and Šamšī-Adad

Šamšī-Adad I’s (1808‒1776 BCE) contribution to the development of Assyrian

ideology and historiography was crucial. According to Dominique Charpin’s

Assyria102 Eshnunna

King Date King Date

Erishum I 1974‒1935
Ikunum 1934‒1920
Sargon I 1919‒1880
Puzur-Assur II 1879‒1872 Ibal-pi-El I ?‒1863
Naram-Sin 1871‒1829/19 Ipiq-Adad II ca. 1862‒ca. 1818
Erishum II 1828/18‒1809 Naram-Sin 1818‒?
Shamshi-Adad I 1808‒1776 Dadusha ?‒1780/1779
(1807‒1775)103 Ibal-pi-El II 1779/8‒1765

Tab. 1: Chronological Table of the Dynasties of Aššur and Ešnunna (after Charpin 2004a;
Pruzsinszky 2010, 157 and Veenhof 2007)

found its way into one of the Assyrian state rituals, see Stein 2001, 154‒155 with fig. 4. For a
discussion of this ritual see Chapter 9.5.
102 Assyrian dates provided by the Kültepe Eponym List (Veenhof 2007; Pruzsinszky 2010:
157)
103 1807‒1775 date range for Shamshi-Adad I is consistent with Middle Chronology / Eshnun-
na dates also follow the Middle Chronology (Charpin 2004, Pruzsinsky 2010: 35)
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 117

Map. 1: Early 2nd Millennium Territorial States (after van de Mieroop 2004, 110, Map 6.1).

recent reconstruction, Šamšī-Adad I was of Amorite origin and his ancestors

had settled in Akkad,104 becoming rivals of the kingdom of Ešnunna. Under
the expansionist politics of Ipiq-Adad II and Narām-Sîn, Šamšī-Adad I was ex-
pelled from Akkad (Chronological Table); from his exile in Babylon he con-
quered Ekallatum, and then Aššur and the area of the Hābūr triangle, where
he made Šekhna his royal residence and renamed it Šubat-Enlil.105
According to Charpin we should not think of an “Assyria” during the reign
of Šamšī-Adad I.106 The city of Aššur formed part of Šamšī-Adad I’s kingdom
of Upper Mesopotamia, which at this time encompassed the upper and eastern
Jazira and represented one of several Amorite kingdoms (Map 1). Nonetheless,
Šamšī-Adad I initiated major transformations in the political and cultural life
of Aššur. It is with this king that we first encounter a titulary reflecting a full-
fledged and sophisticated ideological program, which built not only on local
(Aššur), Akkadian, and Ur III precedents, but also reflected his expansionist
ambitions and thus integrated the central aspects of the imperialism known to
us from later Assyrian kings.107 Šamšī-Adad I’s political skill is evident in his

104 Durand 1997, 28 and Charpin 2004b.

105 Charpin 2004b, 375 f.
106 Charpin 2004b, 371 and 376 f.
107 On his titulary see Garelli 1990.
118 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

strategic balancing of the local tradition of Aššur, which had its own estab-
lished cultural discourse, with major ideological innovations of his own.
The complexity of Šamšī-Adad I’s ideological discourse is due at least in
part to his interaction with the kings of Ešnunna, notably Narām-Sîn, the first
king to turn Ešnunna into a major Tigridian power, and Daduša, the powerful
king of that same city with whom he competed for supremacy in the Eastern
Tigridian region. Ešnunna “was the most important military and administrative
center in the lower Diyala. In essence, it controlled access to this frontier zone
all the way into the Hamrin Basin, which was the nerve center for one part of
the Ur III military corps and also the key to martial, diplomatic, and commer-
cial access to Iran.”108 Ešnunna’s social, political, and economic importance is
equally discernible in its involvement in the transmission of cultural know-
ledge from the south to the north. Its kings, Narām-Sîn and Daduša in particu-
lar, clearly took the Sargonic tradition as a model to emulate109 and, conse-
quently, played an important role in its transmission into the intellectual dis-
course of the city of Aššur during the time of Šamšī-Adad I.110
Šamšī-Adad I incorporated the originally small and self-governing city
state of Aššur, which had established trade connections with Anatolia, north-
ern Syria, and Iran, into his Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia. Once he had
conquered Ekallatum and Aššur,111 Šamšī-Adad I eventually proceeded to take
control of the kingdom of Mari and most of Upper Mesopotamia, from eastern
Syria and up to the Zagros mountains. Following his seizure of Aššur, Šamšī-
Adad I modelled his seal inscription after the traditional titulature of the Old
Assyrian kings, calling himself “favorite of Aššur, vice-regent of Aššur” (narām
Aššur, ensi₂ Aššur) and thereby acknowledging and adopting local tradition.
Additionally, Šamšī-Adad I included his filiation, “son of Ilakabkabû,” in the
seal inscription. After his conquest of Mari in Syria, however, Šamšī-Adad I
assumed a new style of self-presentation that includes the well-known rhetoric
of the kings of Akkad. In addition to “governor of Enlil” (šakin Enlil), epithets
such as “mighty king” (šarrum dannum), “king of Akkad” (šar Uri₃), and “king
of totality” (šar kiššatim) became part of the titulary of Šamšī-Adad I in his

108 Michalowski 2011, 181.

109 Foster 2009, 146.
110 Whether the Tell Leilan redaction of the Sumerian King List must also be attributed to this
channel of transmission requires further research. Its discovery in Šamšī-Adad I’s residence in
Tell Leilan speaks in favor of scholars having been in the environment of the king, as the list
was compiled from two other copies and a third version of an unknown tradition, see Vincente
1995, 234.
111 Charpin and Durand 1997.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 119

inscriptions, signaling his effort to construct a territorial state. The title “gover-
nor of Enlil” disappears at the time of the revolt of Puzur-Sîn, who considered
Šamšī-Adad I to be a foreign usurper alien to the lineage of Aššur (“a foreign
plague, not of the flesh of Aššur,” šibiṭ ahītim lā šīri URUAššur), and in its ab-
sence there appears to have been a return to the exclusive use of the title iššiak
Aššur until the title šakin Enlil was re-introduced under Erība-Adad I (1380‒
1354 BCE) in the Middle Assyrian period. It is not clear whether the re-introduc-
tion of the title should be interpreted as a revival of Old Akkadian ideology or
as the use of a trope familiar from Hammurabi’s prologue, in which (Anu and)
Enlil are said to be responsible for assigning power to kings. The key feature
of Šamšī-Adad I’s inscriptions in Aššur is that as a steward (ensi₂) of the god
Aššur, he is accountable to this deity.
During Šamšī-Adad I’s reign there was a change in scribal practice in Aššur
that can only be ascribed to the influence and physical presence of Babylonian
scribes. Šamšī-Adad I’s monumental inscriptions are written in Old Babyloni-
an, and “his and his son’s letters discovered at Mari show no genuine ‘Assyri-
an’ features of orthography, phonology, or morphology.”112 It should further be
noted that in Šamšī-Adad I’s residence at Tell Leilan a version of the Sumerian
King List was found that was also written in Babylonian script,113 which consti-
tutes still more evidence of the adoption of Babylonian scribal culture at the
court of Šamšī-Adad I.
At this point it is necessary to comment on the title ‘mighty king,’ for which
the kings of Urkeš must be revisited. The rulers of Urkeš seem to have adopted
the custom of the Akkadian kings of writing the epithet ‘the strong one’ right
after their name. This is attested in the names of the kings Tiš-atal and Ann-
atal, both of whose names contain the Hurrian element -adal, ‘the strong one,’
an epithet shared with the god Nergal/Kumarbi at Urkeš.114 In Akkadian royal
inscriptions, the title dannum – ‘strong, powerful’ – in its nominalized mean-
ing, immediately follows the name of the king in the titulary, as in Narām-Sîn
dannum or Šar-kali-šarrī dannum, ‘Narām-Sîn, the strong one’ and ‘Šar-kali-
šarrī, the strong one.’ Only in the titulature of the Ur III kings is the epithet
‘the strong one’ paired with lugal as an adjective, as in lugal kalag.ga
(strong/mighty king). This practice is then adopted by Šamšī-Adad I, as attest-
ed in line 6 of a votive inscription from Mari:

112 Veenhof 1982, 363.

113 Vincente 1995.
114 Personal names with the element -adal then become common in the Old Babylonian peri-
od, see Salvini 1998, 112; Trémouille 1999, 289.
120 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Votive Inscription of Šamšī-Adad I115

 1 a-na dinanna lugal To Ištar-King
 2 ša-pí-ra-at ki-ša-at who controls the totality
 3 ša-me-e ù er-ṣé-tim of Heaven and Earth,
 4 ma-gi-ra-at ni-iš qa-ti-šu who responds favorably to his prayer,
 5 a-li-kat im-ni-šu who walks at his right side,
d
 6 utu-ši-diškur lugal kal-ga Šamšī-Adad, the mighty king,
 7 lugal a-ga-dèki king of Akkad,
 8 ka-ši-id ki-ša-at conqueror of all
rev.  9 a-ia-bi-šu his enemies,
10 li-li-ìs zabar (14) has dedicated a bronze drum
11 ša ri-gi-im-šu ṭa-bu of which its pleasant sound
12 a-na sí-ma-at qar-ra-du-ti-šu is adequate to her heroism.
13 šu-lu-ku
14 ú-še-lu

Ideological discourse never emerges independently of interaction with groups

that are considered outsiders or competitors by a particular cultural and politi-
cal community. Instead, it develops in direct response to and in conversation
with peer polities. While on the one hand the titles adopted by Šamšī-Adad I
belong to the ideological program inherited from the kings of Akkad, on the
other hand they simultaneously address peer polities who claimed the same
rank, first and foremost the kings of Ešnunna. In this light, the first ruler of
Ešnunna who was independent of the Ur III kingdom adopted the title lugal –
‘king’ – which subsequently became the prerogative of the god Tišpak, with
the ruler acting as his steward (ensi₂). Beginning with the reign of Ipiq-Adad,
Ešnunnean kings started to use the title ‘mighty king’ (šarrum dannum). Ipiq-
Adad II introduced the epithet of ‘the king who enlarged’ the borders of the
kingdom (šarrum murappiš Ešnunna ki) and ‘king of totality’ (šar kiššatim),
thereby explicitly challenging his peers in Ekallatum/Aššur and Mari and es-
tablishing a precedent for the expression of territorial claims. The expansionist
ambitions reflected in the epithet murappiš Ešnunna ki anticipate what later be-
comes the central premise of Assyrian kingship, namely the expansion of the
borders of Assyria commanded in the Assyrian coronation ritual.
Šamšī-Adad I shares the title lugal kalag.ga with the kings Narām-Sîn
and Daduša, who seem to have been the most powerful of the kings of Ešnun-
na – possibly helping to explain why Narām-Sîn is mentioned in the Assyrian
King List in the narrative section on Šamšī-Adad I and reflecting the military
pressure exerted by Ešnunna.116 By that time the city state of Ešnunna had

115 Charpin 1984.

116 For the quotation of the text see below Chapter 3.5.3.1.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 121

expanded its control over the Diyala valley as far as its confluence with the
Tigris and incorporated previously independent cities such as Nerebtum (Ish-
chali), Šaduppum (Tell Harmal), and Meturan (Tell Haddad). Ešnunna experi-
enced a decline in power in the decades preceding the reign of Šamšī-Adad I,
a period regarded as the classical phase of Aššur’s trade with Anatolia when
Sargon (1920‒1881 BCE), Puzur-Aššur II (1880‒1873 BCE), Narām-Sîn (1872‒
1829/19 BCE), and Erišum II (1828‒1809 BCE) were rulers in the city. Because
Ešnunna was located on the trade route that ran from Susa through Der and
then upstream along the Tigris, Aššur must have benefited from Ešnunna’s
temporary weakness by controlling trade in tin during that period.117 Veenhof,
however, accepts the possibility that Aššur’s trade might have started even
earlier.118
After bringing Aššur, the Hābūr triangle, and the kingdom of Mari under
his control, Šamšī-Adad I appears to have envisioned an additional network of
power based upon the cities of Aššur, Nineveh and Arbela. During the last
years of his reign, he undertook to conquer the regions east of the Tigris, which
became the core land of later Assyria.119 In the winter of 1781 BCE, Šamšī-
Adad I joined forces with Daduša, the king of Ešnunna, to conquer the region
between the Upper and Lower Zab rivers east of the Tigris, focusing particular-
ly on the kingdom of Qabara/Arbail. This campaign is recorded in the first
example of historiographic writing, which is inscribed on a commemorative
stele of Šamšī-Adad I now kept in the Louvre and narrates the events of the
campaign against Qabara; the combination of military narrative and royal in-
scription anticipates the basic outline of later Assyrian royal inscriptions:

i 1‒10 … [By] command of [the god] Enlil and […] my attack [in Arraphe […] seventh day
[…] and I sacrificed
Lacuna
ii 1′-iv 12′ I entered his fortress. I kissed the feet of the god Adad, my lord, and reorga-
nized that land. I installed my governors everywhere and in Arraphe itself I made offer-
ings at the humṭum festival to the gods Šamaš and Adad. On the twentieth day of the
month Adaru I crossed the river Zab and made a razzia in the land of Qabara. I destroyed
(lit.: I struck down) the harvest of that land and in the month of Magrānum (lit. ‘Threshing
Floor’) I captured all the fortified cities of the land of Arbela (Urbēl). I established my
garrisons everywhere. Qabara … […] In … the harv[est] … that city in the month … they
did not carry … that city in […]
Lacuna120

117 Dercksen 2004, 27.

118 Veenhof in Veenhof/Eidem 2008, 32 assumes that this was during the reign of Ilu-šumma.
119 Charpin/Durand 1997, 382.
120 Translation follows for the most part Grayson RIMA 1, A.0.39.1001; see further Charpin
and Durand 1985, 315, 98; Eidem 1992, 16‒18; Whiting 1990, 169 with fn. 14.
122 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Šamšī-Adad I’s inscription describing his campaign against Arraphe and Qaba-
ra differs greatly from his building inscriptions dedicated to the Aššur temple
and the Ištar temple Emenue at Nineveh, in which the narrative emphasis is
on the process of building the temple rather than on military campaigns, in
line with the traditional Sumero-Babylonian model. Although much more frag-
mentary, Šamšī-Adad I’s inscription on his victory stele, like the stele of Dadu-
ša, reveals numerous elements well-known from later Middle Assyrian royal
inscriptions – possibly due to the nature of the stele as carrier of the inscrip-
tion. These elements are as follows: war waged in the name of a god, in this
case Enlil and another god, probably Aššur; a narrative concerning the suc-
cessful conquest of a region, in this case the Hurrian kingdom of Arraphe
though the details do not survive; the annexation of a land (kur/mātu) to Aš-
šur through its administrative reorganization and the appointment of gover-
nors; the king’s celebration of an important local festival – in this particular
case the humṭum-festival – to ingratiate himself with local elites and to gain
the support of their gods; and finally references to razzias like that in Qabara
and the installation of garrisons.121 The importance of Arraphe (āl ilāni) to the
kingdom of Arraphe is clear from one of the Old Babylonian letters from Šem-
šara, which mentions a treaty ceremony relating to a treaty between Šamšī-
Adad I and Yašub-dIM performed in the temple of the storm god of Arraphe,122
an important cultic center in the Eastern Tigridian area.123 Although it is only
mentioned in passing in his stele, Šamšī-Adad I’s installation of governors (ša-
knu) appears to refer to the reorganization of the conquered areas as provinces
under his control, an administrative system that the Mitanni state and then the
Middle Assyrian kings would develop and perfect. It should also be noted that
despite its poor state of preservation, Šamšī-Adad I’s stele resembles Daduša’s
stele in style and iconographic content, emphasizing the smiting of the enemy
in various forms.
Having vanquished the Hurrian kingdom of Arraphe in 1781 BCE, Šamšī-
Adad I proceeded to invade the region of the Lower Zab while his son Išme-
Dagan captured Nineveh and his son Yasmah-Adad concentrated on Qabara,
gateway to the Lower Zab, which fell in the fall of 1780 BCE.124 Both city states

121 See already Tadmor 1977.

122 SH 809, quoted by Deller 1976, 38.
123 See the letter ARM I 136 (quoted in Schwemer 2001, 266), in which Šamšī-Adad I’s son
Išme-Dagan reports that he provided the temple with a garden for which the seeds of daprā-
num-juniper had to be imported from Syria. For further evidence revealing the importance of
the cultic center of the storm god see Schwemer 2001, 266‒267.
124 Charpin/Ziegler 2003, 76.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 123

had remained independent polities until then, functioning as buffer states be-
tween Ešnunna and Aššur. At some point after the conquest of Nurrugum-Nin-
eveh, Šamšī-Adad I began rebuilding Emenue, its temple of Ištar. The conquest
of Nurrugum-Nineveh is mentioned only briefly to provide a sequence of events
that links Šamšī-Adad I to the dynasty of Akkad:125

The temple Emenue – which (is) in the district of Emašmaš, the old temple – which Maniš-
utušu, son of Sargon, king of Akkad, had built, (that temple) had become dilapidated.
The temple which none of the kings who preceded me from the fall of Akkade until my
sovereignty, until the capture of Nurrugum – seven generations had past and …126

Šamšī-Adad I’s building inscription for Emenue also demonstrates that the cult
of Ištar was active in the city of Aššur at least from the reign of the Old Akkadi-
an king Maništušu (2269‒2255 BCE). Ištar-of-Nineveh was already known in the
south – specifically in Nippur – by her Hurrian name dŠa-u₁₈-ša-Ni-nu-a ki dur-
ing the Ur III period.127 She had probably been brought there by the sister of
king Tiš-atal of Nineveh when she married Šu-Sîn of Ur.128 Her cult in Nineveh
attained such importance that Šamšī-Adad I traveled there for oracular inquir-
ies (têrētum) before going on campaign.129
The revolt of the Turukkeans brought an end to Šamšī-Adad I’s campaign
between the Zab rivers, as it obliged him to focus his attention elsewhere.130
In Šamšī-Adad I’s victory stele commemorating the campaign, credit for all
conquests is assigned to him (fig. 20).131 Daduša’s victory stele (fig. 21), by
contrast, reads differently. Having emerged victorious from the military con-
frontations, Daduša’s stele claims that he offered Qabara and its population as
a diplomatic gift to Šamšī-Adad I, implying that it was Daduša himself who
conquered Qabara while simultaneously acknowledging the superior status of
Šamšī-Adad I.132 These events occurred in the last years of Daduša’s reign and
are confirmed by eponym dates from Mari and Šemšara as well as year names

125 Ziegler 2005.

126 RIMA 1, A.0.39.2 i 7‒25.
127 Such-Gutiérrez 2003, vol. I, 366; vol. II 381, pl. 84.
128 Whiting 1982; Zettler 2003, 27.
129 LAPO II 672.
130 See Charpin/Zieger 2003, 106 f. For further attempts of the Turukkeans to gain control of
the Hābūr Triangle see Charpin 2003, 112 ff.
131 RIMA 1, A.0.39.1001 and Charpin and Ziegler 2003, 92. Unfortunately not much of the
stele is preserved, but it seems to have been similar in style and iconography to the one of
Daduša both emulating the style of Old Akkadian iconographyof steles after Sargon, see Börk-
er-Klähn 1982, figs. 21‒22.
132 Khalil Ismail and Cavigneaux 2003.
124 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Fig. 20: Stele of Šamšī-Adad (after Moortgat 1969, fig 204, 205; Louvre AO2776).

on tablets from Šduppum and Nerebtum.133 Interestingly, in Daduša’s stele

Šamšī-Adad I is referred to as ‘king of Ekallatum,’ reflecting the fact that al-
though Šamšī-Adad I’s kingdom was administered from Šubat-Enlil, Ekalla-
tum, and Mari, his cultural politics were perceived as being centered on Ekalla-
tum/Aššur.
Daduša’s victory stele, which is much better preserved than the Louvre
stele of Šamšī-Adad I, represents an important document for the development
of Tigridian historiography.134 Like Šamšī-Adad I’s inscription, it anticipates
the typical structure of later Assyrian royal inscriptions in its presentation of
the name, filiation, and titulary of the king, which is here preceded by the
invocation of the storm god Adad. It should be noted that Adad also figures as
the prominent warrior deity in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend,135 thus linking

133 Miglus 2003, 399 with references to Frayne, RIME 4, E4.5.19.1; Whiting 1990, 169 ff. and
Wu Yuhong 1994, 169, 179.
134 On the iconography of the stele see most recently Peter Miglus 2003, who notes similar-
ities with Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures and the steles of Sargon.
135 See Chapter 4.2.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 125

Fig. 21: Daduša Stele (Miglus 2003; Iraq Museum, IM 95200).

126 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

the conception of the storm god in Aššur to that of Ešnunna. Similarly, Adad
is the figure depicted as treading on the enemy in the upper register of the
Daduša stele, flanked by Daduša himself, who is represented as a supplicant
in a manner comparable to Hammurabi on his stele. The Daduša stele records
the sequence of events relating to a military campaign, including a description
of the spoils brought to Daduša’s royal residence following the campaign’s suc-
cessful conclusion; the campaign itself is justified by a perceived lack of re-
spect for the king and ends in a swift victory that is accompanied by extensive
destruction, the abduction of gods, and the bringing of extensive booty to Eš-
nunna:

When Anum and Enlil (v) with a magnificent order instructed me in a lordly way to exer-
cise kingship over the universe (šarrūt kiššatim) forever and govern the totality of the
people (kullat nišī), (when) at the declaration of Warrior Tišpak and Adad, my god, the
skill of battle, that of throwing down all evil (naphar lemnūtim) and of lifting up the head
of Ešnunna, was majestically given to me – at that time Qabra, where none of the princes,
my predecessors, who have ruled in Ešnunna, nor of the kings who exist in the whole
world, where no king at all had ventured to besiege it, to this land that hated me and
failed to bow down respectfully upon the evocation of my honorable name I sent ten
thousand first rate troops. With the strong weapon of warrior Tišpak and Adad, my god,
(vii) I passed through its territory like the wild kašūšum (divine destruction). His allied
forces and all his warriors, none of them offered me any resistance, his widespread cities
Tutarra, Hatkum, Hurarā, Kirhum and his extensive settlements I swiftly seized with my
strong weapon. I truly had their gods, their booty and their precious wealth brought to
Ešnunna, my royal capital. (viii) After I had laid waste to its surrounding territories and
crushed his extensive land, I majestically approach Qabra, his main city. In ten days I
seized this city by means of a surrounding siege wall, by heaping up earth, with the help
of a breach, an attack and my great strength. I swiftly bound its king Bunu-Ištar by the
blaze of my strong weapon and I truly had his head quickly brought to Ešnunna. (ix) The
determination of the kings who supported him and his allies dissolved altogether and I
truly set them in deadly silence. I brought in a lordly way his vast booty, the heavy trea-
sure of this city, gold, silver, precious stones, fine luxuries and everything else that this
land possessed, to Ešnunna, my royal capital, and (x) I truly exhibited it to all people,
young and old, of the upper and lower land. All that remained in this land, this city, its
vast territory and its settlements, I truly gave as a gift to Šamšī-Adad, king of Ekallatum
…136

Some details of this narrative are unusual, namely the exhibition of the spoils
of war to the inhabitants of Ešnunna, the reference to Daduša’s presentation
of Qabra to Šamšī-Adad I as a gift, and the description of the imagery on the
stele itself, which has been preserved. Daduša’s representation in the upper
register of his stele in a praying posture addressing the celestial bodies of Sîn

136 After van Koppen in Chavalas 2006, 98‒102.

 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 127

and Šamaš likely reflects the rising importance of astrology in the Old Babylo-
nian period, which is also apparent with the emergence of the first astrological
omen tablets at that time. Another unusual feature of the Daduša stele is the
inclusion of a prayer addressed to the god Adad, who had enabled the king’s
victory by means of his strong weapon.
Reference to filiation and epithets like ‘mighty king’ (lugal kalag.ga),
‘beloved of Tišpak,’ and ‘for whom Adad has determined the conquest of his
enemy with a strong weapon’ – all of which appear in the Daduša stele –
emerge as the typical tropes of Tigridian ideological discourse. The epithet
‘seed of a long-lasting lineage’, by contrast, appears to have been shared with
the kings of Babylon who were of Amorite origin, entering into the Assyrian
titulary only in the first millennium BCE. Also typically Babylonian and remi-
niscent of the prologue to Hammurabi’s law code is the trope of the establish-
ment of Daduša’s kingship by the chief gods Anu and Enlil in a chain of com-
mand that passes through the city god Tišpak and Daduša’s personal god
Adad.137 The inclusion of the personal god is characteristic of a particularly
Ešnunnean royal discourse (iv 13‒v 11) and does not occur in Hammurabi’s
stele. Šamšī-Adad I, on the other hand, does refer to his personal god Sîn in
his inscription from the Aššur temple, demonstrating yet again that there was
significant overlap between the royal ideology of Ešnunna and that of Aššur.138
Although the style of the Daduša stele inscription has been classified as
awkward,139 together with the Louvre stele of Šamšī-Adad I it constitutes the
earliest known attempt to draw up a military report within the framework of
an address delivered to the gods, framed by the invocation of a god and royal
titulary at the beginning and a curse formula at the end, which mimics at least
in part the structure of Akkadian royal inscriptions. The particular structure of
Daduša’s military report reappears only under the Middle Assyrian kings in the
second half of the second millennium BCE, and then develops into the form of
annals under Tiglath-Pileser I (1114‒1076 BCE). In its attempt to model the
king’s image after his achievements while reinventing established tropes, the
Daduša stele represents a beautiful illustration of the creativity of ancient
scholars. These scholars adapted received tradition in light of the relevant his-
torical events of their time and in the process they fashioned new forms of
royal self-representation.

137 In Hammurabi’s prologue Anu and Enlil bestow kingship upon the king through Marduk,
city god of Babylon.
138 RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:132 dZUEN DINGIR rešīya.
139 Khalil Ismail/Cavigneaux 2003, 154.
128 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

The only other roughly contemporaneous inscriptions that can be com-

pared stylistically and in terms of their historical scope to the victory steles
of Šamšī-Adad I and Daduša are Yahdun-Līm’s Disc Inscription and his brick
inscriptions recording his building of the Šamaš temple in Mari. In contrast to
Šamšī-Adad I’s and Daduša’s inscriptions, Yahdun-Līm’s Disc Inscription be-
gins with the king’s name and titulary before introducing the topos of divine
election; in this case Dagan selects Yahdun-Līm for kingship. The Disc Inscrip-
tion also describes more than a single military campaign, as it records both
Yahdun-Līm’s victory over the Khanean chiefs and his foundation of the new
fortress Dūr-Yahdun-Līm:

Yahdun-Lim, son of Yaggid-Lim; king of Mari, Tutul and the country of the Khaneans;
The powerful king, who controls the banks of the Euphrates.
Dagan proclaimed my kingship and handed me a powerful weapon, “Destroyer of Kings
Hostile to me”;
I defeated seven kings – Khanean chiefs – who successfully challenged me, annexing
their territory;
I removed the hostile forces from the banks of the Euphrates, giving peace to my land;
I opened canals, thus eliminating well-water drawing throughout my land.
I built Mari’s ramparts and dug its moat;
I built Terqa’s ramparts and dug its moat.
And in the burnt field – an arid spot – where not one king since days of yore founded a
town,
Indeed I, having wished it,
Founded a town, dug its moat and called it “Dur Yahdullim.”
I then opened a canal for it and called it “Ishim-Yahdullim.”
I, therefore, enlarged my country and strengthened the structure (lit. foundations) of Mari
and my land,
Establishing my reputation for eternity.
Whoever discards my commemorations (lit. foundation inscriptions), replacing them with
his own
Such a person – be he king or governor –
May Anum and Enlil curse him darkly;
… further curses follow …140

Several similarities are apparent between the inscriptions of Mari and Ešnunna
on the one hand and later Assyrian inscriptions on the other. These include
the statement of the king’s genealogy following his name, the account of a
military campaign,141 the reference to a god entrusting the king with a powerful
divine weapon, the king’s role as enlarger of the territory under his control

140 Translation after Sasson 1990.

141 See already Renger 1980‒83, 69 § 5.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 129

(māti urappiš), the king’s strengthening of the foundations of the land (išdē
kunnu) in a formula typical of later Assyrian royal inscriptions, and the king’s
provision of water for the newly built city, a motif that resurfaces in Assyrian
royal inscriptions from the Middle Assyrian period onward (see Chapter Seven).
Yahdun-Lim’s Disc Inscription also reveals a deep familiarity with Sumerian
literary production, as the structure of its beginning is modeled entirely after
Sumerian votive inscriptions.
Like the Daduša stele, Yahdun-Līm’s building account of the Šamaš tem-
ple142 commences with an invocation of a divinity, in this case the god Šamaš,
instead of with the titulary of the king, which here follows the prayer to the
sun god. This structure might have served as a model for the Daduša stele, as
its inscription begins with a hymn addressed to the weather god. The subse-
quent military account in Yahdun-Līm’s Šamaš temple inscription describes
the king’s expedition to the Mediterranean Sea, achieving mythic dimensions
through its account of the arrival of Yahdun-Līm’s soldiers at the seashore and
their bathing in the Mediterranean, which in one case is referred to as a.ab.ba
rather than tiāmtum.143 Yahdun-Līm’s description of the felling of trees in the
Cedar Mountains, reminiscent of Gilgameš’s achievements recorded in the epi-
sode of Gilgameš and Huwawa, becomes yet another trope of royal discourse
and reemerges in later Assyrian inscriptions along with Yahdun-Līm’s refer-
ence to ‘finished craftsmanship’ and technical perfection in construction.144
Because Yahdun-Lim’s inscriptions predate those of Daduša and Šamšī-Adad I,
it can be inferred that the kind of textual work on royal representation that
they represent might have begun even earlier at Ešnunna, perhaps even under
its king Ipiq-Adad II, who introduced the notion of expanding the borders of
his kingdom into royal discourse. If this is the case, then only chance has pre-
vented us from recovering concrete evidence of such cultural dynamics.
As a preliminary conclusion it can be observed that the commonalities
linking the royal inscriptions of Ešnunna, Mari, and Aššur reinforce the impres-
sion gained from the linguistic perspective. Ešnunna’s political power in the
Old Babylonian period is also evident in its function as a cultural model for its
peers. Such cultural modeling resulted not only in Yahdun-Līm’s scribal re-
forms at Mari, but also helps account for the ease with which scholars during
the reign of Šamšī-Adad I were able to draw and build upon a rich northern
Mesopotamian cultural repertoire.

142 RIME 4, E4.6.8.2.

143 RIME 4, E4.6.8.2:60.
144 RIME 4, E4.6.8.2:99‒107.
130 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

3.5.2 Daduša and his Scholars’ Library as Predecessor

to the Exorcist’s Library in Aššur

Although its discovery is perhaps completely accidental, it should be noted

that a seal of Daduša’s diviner Iluni has been found in Meturan/Tell Haddad,
suggesting that this scholar may well have been active on the king’s behalf in
cities outside of Ešnunna.145 It is conceivable that Iluni was in Meturan on a
political mission, as is attested for other diviners like Asqudum at the court of
Zimrilim of Mari,146 or that he journeyed there in order to cooperate with local
exorcists at the king’s behest. Since no scholar’s library has been found in
Aššur that dates to the time of Šamšī-Adad I, a closer examination of the textu-
al production of Daduša and his scholars can help shed light on the develop-
ment of Assyrian tradition and ideological discourse.
It is possible to learn about the activities of the exorcists of Meturan from
a tablet collection that has been discovered in a large house. This collection
includes economic and administrative texts, school texts, letters, and literary,
exorcistic, hemerological, mathematical, medical, and liturgical texts.147 Be-
cause the Meturan tablets comprise both utilitarian and literary texts, they pro-
vide a unique insight into the rich intellectual world of an eighteenth century
exorcist skilled in apotropaic and exorcistic rites for the sake of the individual
and agricultural rites intended to protect the harvest against every manner of
natural disaster. The inclusion among the Meturan tablets of a collection of
royal hymns on a Sammeltafel 148 and Sumerian literary texts concerning Gil-
gameš not only indicates a deep familiarity with the Sumero-Babylonian tradi-
tion of the south but also concern with the institution of kingship; similarly,
the presence of a Sumerian version of the myth of Adapa, regarded as the
model sage, points to an interest in defining the professional identity of the
exorcist. It is unfortunately impossible to tell whether the literary and exorcis-
tic texts of the Meturan library belonged to the same person, as they were
found in separate rooms.
Antoine Cavigneaux and Farouk al-Rawi, the editors of the Meturan library
texts, have shown that some of these texts exist in several copies written by
different hands, suggesting an educational context. This notion is reinforced

145 RIME 4, E4.5.19.2015: i-lu-ni máš.šu.gíd.gíd dumu dutu-ra-bi ir₁₁ da-du-ša.

146 Charpin 2011.
147 Cavigneaux 1999. For a convenient list with bibliographical references see Jean 2006, 159‒
161.
148 Two of the four hymns are dedicated to the kings Lipit-Eštar and Iddin-Dagan, see Cavi-
gneaux/al-Rawi 1993, 95.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 131

by the presence of school texts. Accordingly, there is a distinct possibility that

there was more than one person working as an exorcist, which would point to
a scholarly and educational environment comparable to what we find in the
second half of the second millennium with the house of the diviner in Emar149
and in first millennium Aššur with the House of the Exorcist.150 The combina-
tion of utilitarian and literary texts in the library of Meturan is itself a clear
indication of scholarly interest in both the weltanschauung represented by liter-
ary texts and in the application of this cultural matrix to social practice, as is
evident, for example, in the ideological representation of kingship. Scholars
can thus be seen to be integrating and regarding as unitary what we generally
tend to divide into religion, culture, and politics.151 Another Old Babylonian
library worth mentioning in this context is the library of the Enki Temple in
Larsa, which includes hymns pertaining to the royal cults of Hammurabi and
Samsuiluna (TCL 16 43, 61), liturgical poetry, incantations like the purification
ritual for king and army before battle (YOS 11 42),152 incantations for the royal
censer (YOS 11 49), and further the “liturgy of the celebration of a sacred mar-
riage rite of the king Rīm-Sîn and the goddess Nanaya, divinatory series, peni-
tential prayers, and mathematical texts.”153 The content of both library collec-
tions testifies to close cooperation between scholars and/or temple personnel
and the king.
Interaction between the king and his scholars during the reign of Daduša
was effectively a continuation of a tradition hinted at in Ešnunna already in
the Akkad period. A number of literary texts were found among several school
exercises excavated in private houses in Ešnunna, one of which is related to
the later traditions of the Great Rebellion against Narām-Sîn154 while another is
a hymn extolling the martial qualities of the storm god Tišpak, thus reflecting
northern Mesopotamian and Hurrian conceptions of the storm god.155 This evi-
dence from the Akkad period is tantalizing, as it reveals the emergence of a
literary tradition centered on the kings of Akkad in the region of Ešnunna dur-
ing the time of the kings of Akkad. The existence of such a tradition helps
explain the fact that later scholars from Ešnunna were conversant with the

149 Fleming 2000; Cohen 2009; Rutz 2013.

150 Michalowski 2001, 112 seems to have thought along the same lines, classifying the library
as a reference library.
151 For a similar observation see Cavigneaux 2002, 2.
152 Van Dijk 1973.
153 Westenholz and Westenholz 2006, 7‒8.
154 Westenholz 1974‒77, 96, MAD 1 172. For a recent edition and discussion of this school text
suggesting a literary reception of historical events see Haul 2009, 33‒57.
155 Westenholz 1974‒77, 102 MAD I 192.
132 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

discourse centered on the kings of Akkad, as is apparent during the Old Baby-
lonian period. Moreover, it constitutes evidence of a trajectory for the transmis-
sion of the Akkadian tradition into the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend.156
Since they do not precede Daduša but do predate Hammurabi’s invasion
in 1760, the texts from Meturan allow a glimpse into the scholarly world of an
eighteenth century political center in the Tigridian region that interacted di-
rectly with Aššur. An interesting cultural link between Aššur and Ešnunna is
the concern with economic measures demonstrated by kings from both cities.
In Šamšī-Adad I’s inscription from the Aššur temple, he provides information
about the silver value of basic commodities. The same economic concern is
apparent in certain cases from Daduša’s law collection, which is known as the
Laws of Ešnunna.157 Both texts, albeit different in genre, are reminiscent of the
Old Babylonian royal edicts issued to cancel private debt obligations and serv-
ing to enhance the king’s image as provider of justice for his people. Indeed,
the same trope is attested in the inscriptions of Nūr-Adad of Larsa,158 who
reigned slightly earlier than Daduša in Ešnunna and Šamšī-Adad I in Aššur. In
its demonstration of the growing professionalism of scholarly experts, the li-
brary of Meturan points to the social dynamics behind Šamšī-Adad I’s effort
for cultural integration. The cultural dominance of Ešnunna at that time is
evident in the fact that Mari’s scribal reform also adopted Ešnunnean scribal
conventions with regard to the shape of tablets and signs.159 Similarly, both
the king of Ešnunna and Šamšī-Adad I appear to have relied on the calendar
of Akkad, as they share seven month names.160
One other feature worth mentioning in support of the notion of a larger
cultural community encompassing northern Syrian and the eastern Tigridian
region is the fact that the palaces of the Old Babylonian kingdoms of Mari, Tell
Rimah (Qattara/Karana), Tell Bi’a (Tuttul) and Tell Asmar (Ešnunna) and the
Eastern Lower Town palace in Tell Leilan (Šubat-Enlil) show similarities in
their outline, all “built around an inner and outer courtyard, usually connected
by a reception suite.”161

156 For the text see Chapter 4.2.

157 Roth 1997, 57‒70.
158 RIME 4, E4.2.8.7; see also the inscriptions of his successors Sîn-iddinam RIME 4, E4.2.9.6
and Sîn-iqišam RIME 4, E4.2.11.1.
159 Durand 1985, 161‒164; Charpin 1992, 6‒7; Charpin and Ziegler 2003, 40.
160 The so-called calendar of Šamšī-Adad I is attested at Chagar Bazar, Tell Rimah, Tell Taya,
Tell Biʾa and Tell Leilan, see Charpin/Ziegler 2003, 156.
161 Ristvet and Weiss in Eidem 2011, XXXIII.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 133

3.5.3 Šamšī-Adad I’s Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia: Political Pragmatism

and Cultural Discourse

3.5.3.1 The Eponym System and the Mari Chronicles

Šamšī-Adad I’s (1808‒1776 BCE) efforts to fashion a cohesive kingdom of Upper
Mesopotamia were effectively an attempt “to unite the whole Hābūr region and
adjacent areas under a single administration, a system seen in operation in the
tablets from Chagar Bazar.”162 Also important in this respect was the introduc-
tion of the Assyrian eponym system in the cities of Mari, Tuttul, Šubat-Enlil,
and Terqa for the purpose of dating documents and streamlining administra-
tive procedures.163 Probably introduced for the first time under Erišum I,164 the
eponym system was the foundation of Assyrian chronological reckoning
through to the very end of Assyrian history.
Several eponym lists from the Old Assyrian period have been recovered in
Kültepe. In addition, Mari has yielded exemplars of the so-called Mari Eponym
Chronicle, which does not, however, “follow Assyrian scribal conventions.”165
It is interesting that one exemplar of the Assyrian eponym lists, designated by
Veenhof as KEL A, exhibits features of an official scholarly text representing
an ‘authorized’ full version of the list, including insertions referring to the As-
syrian kings Erišum through Narām-Sîn. KEL A concludes with a colophon that
is highly unusual in its lexicography and points to the Akkadization of scholar-
ship:

[…] ÌR-sà iš-ṭur₄ Šu-H[a?-x-x i]š-ta-sí-šu-um

Warassa wrote (it), Šu-H[a …] read it out to him.

Veenhof observes that although typical of Babylonian scholarly practice, the

verbs šaṭārum ‘to write’ and šitassûm ‘to read’ in the above colophon are not
used in Old Assyrian, which uses lapātum for ‘to write’ and šamāʾum ‘to hear’
instead.166 The colophon of the Mari Eponym Chronicle reveals a similar phras-
ing:

ŠU Ha-ab-du-ma-lik mu-uš-ta-as-sú-u Li-mi-dDagan

By the hand (written by) H., the one who dictated it was L.167

162 Veenhof and Eidem 2008, 141; Eidem 2011, 58.

163 Van de Mieroop 2007.
164 Veenhof 2003, 20. Note that the KEL begins with year one of Erišum and opens with the
statement that the eponym system was instituted during his reign: “After the accession of
[Erišum], the overseer, our lord; after the līmum had been instituted.”
165 Veenhof 2003, 13.
166 Veenhof 2003, .
167 Veenhof 2003, 10.
134 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Eponym list KEL A and the Mari Eponym Chronicle also share a similar division
of the eponyms into groups according to the accession of kings to the throne,
revealing that this scribal convention was shared by the scholarly circles of
Aššur/Kaneš and Mari. For instance, in the beginning of KEL A appears the
following line:

[ištu rēš k]ussîm ša Erišum [waklim bē]lini

After the accession of Erišum, the overseer, our lord.

The Mari Eponym Chronicle is likewise a scholarly document, preserved in sev-

eral copies and editions that were composed on the basis of an existing epo-
nym list and “fleshed out by adding selected pieces of historical information,
which he (the author) may have derived from existing royal inscriptions,
chronicle-like texts and perhaps even chancery documents.”168 As Veenhof
notes, “his (the author’s) purpose apparently was to treat the period during
which the dynasty culminating in king Šamšī-Adad I arose and flourished
(mentioning i.a. his father, brother, birth, accession to the throne, conquests
etc.), up till the year when he died.”169 One might add Birot’s observation that
the rise of Šamšī-Adad I is set against the background of the interaction and
tension between Šamšī-Adad I’s growing Upper Mesopotamian kingdom and
Ešnunna, since several sections refer to their military encounters.170 Below fol-
lows the most detailed such section:

Section E
 1′ During (the eponymy of) Ennam-Aššur: Šamšī-Adad [conquered?] the la[nd of …]
 2′ [During (the eponymy of) S]în-muballiṭ: Šamšī-Adad [conquered?] the lan[d of …]
 3′ [During (the eponymy) of Riš-Šamaš: Išme-dagan [caused] the defeat of […]
 4′ During (the eponymy) of I]bni-Adad: Šamšī-Adad [conquered] the land of […]
 5′ During (the eponymy) of Aššur-imitti: Šamšī-Adad [caused] the defeat of […]
 6′ he restored that … the land of […]
 7′ (the city of) Meturan, the land of […]
 8′ … Daduša …
 9′ During (the eponymy of) Ili-ellāti: …
10′ During (the eponymy of) Rigmānum: Mu-…
11′ During (the eponymy of) Ikūn-pîya: Mu-na-[…]
12′ … a defeat …
13′ and Šamšī-Adad
14′ the city of Meturan …
15′ … to Daduša …

168 Veenhof 2003, 17.

169 Veenhof 2003, 17.
170 Birot 1985, 224; Glassner 2004, 160‒164.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 135

16′ During (the eponymy of) Asqudum: Šamšī-Adad […]

17′ During (the eponymy of) Aššur-malik: Išme-Dagan [caused] a defeat …
18′ and Šamšī-Adad [took?] Nur[rugum]
19′ Kiprum, king [of …]
20′ Yašub-Adad, king [of …]
21′ Yašub-Lim, king [of …]
22′ he bound? these 9 kings
23′ (and) [rendered them?] to Daduša.
24′ During (the eponymy of) Awiliya: … the Turuk[keans …]

3.5.3.2 The Assyrian King List

Both the eponym lists and the Mari Eponym Chronicles must have formed the
basis for the creation of the first large section of the Assyrian King List (hence-
forth AKL). It has been suggested that the list originated with Šamšī-Adad I
(1808‒1776 BCE), as it is under his name that the author inserted a chronicle-
like entry tracing his origins through to his conquest of the city of Aššur.171 In
this vein, the preceding sections, comprising the seventeen kings who lived in
tents, the forefathers of Šamšī-Adad I, and the Old Assyrian kings, have been
interpreted as some kind of a prehistory to Šamšī-Adad I that combines Šamšī-
Adad I’s dynastic Amorite origins with the urban element of the city of Aššur.
The narrative entry concerning Šamšī-Adad I reads as follows:

In the time of Naram-Sîn (of Ešnunna) Šamšī-Adad went to Babylonia (Karduniaš). During
the eponymy of Ibni-Adad Šamšī-Adad came up from Babylonia and seized Ekallatum,
three years he resided in Ekallatum. During the eponymy of Atamar-Ištar, Šamšī-Adad
came up from Ekallatum and removed Erišum, the son of Narām-Sîn, from the throne (of
Aššur), and seized the throne (of Aššur). He ruled as king for 33 years.172

Because Šamšī-Adad I’s departure from Babylonia occurred after the accession
of Erišum II, the Narām-Sîn mentioned in the AKL must be Narām-Sîn of Eš-
nunna.173 The transition from ahistorical chronological texts like the Assyrian
eponym lists, which simply list the names of eponyms, to historiographic writ-
ing as represented by the Mari Eponym Chronicles and the AKL represents a

171 The five known exemplars are A) the “Nassouhi List,” from Aššur, (Nassouhi 1927); B) the
“Khorsabad List,” (Gelb 1954); C) the SDAS List (Gelb 1954); D) KAV 15 and E) BM 128059
found at Nineveh (Millard 1970). The sigla are the ones used by Grayson 1980‒83, 101‒115. For
interpretations of the list see Landsberger 1954, 33 ff., 109 ff.; Kraus 1965, 11‒22; Finkelstein
1966, 113; Malamat 1968, 164; Röllig 1969, 273, Freydank 1975, 173‒175; Larsen 1976, 36‒40;
Grayson 1980‒83, 101 f.; Glassner 2004, 71‒75; Wu 1990; Siddall 2007. For the chronological
order of the various exemplars see Pruzsinsky 2009, 45‒47.
172 After Veenhof 2003, 61.
173 Veenhof 2003, 61.
136 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

new way of conceiving of the past. That the AKL dates to the time of Šamšī-
Adad I is, however, doubtful. Šamšī-Adad I’s Ahnentafel has been understood
as being interwoven into the three major sections preceding the reign of Šamšī-
Adad I, namely “the seventeen kings who lived in tents,” the forefathers of
Šamšī-Adad I, and the Old Assyrian kings of the city of Aššur.174 Only the sec-
ond section can be said to represent a list of the “forefathers” of Šamšī-Adad I,
as both it and the Mari Eponym Chronicle mention Ila-kabkabû and Aminu as
powerful predecessors of Šamšī-Adad I.175 Nothing in Šamšī-Adad I’s inscrip-
tions suggests that he conceived of himself as an outsider to Aššur. It is only
later under Puzur-Sîn – who seized the throne from one of Šamšī-Adad I’s suc-
cessors – that he was stigmatized as such.176 After Šamšī-Adad I’s entry in the
AKL there are several further chronicle-like entries pointing to some kind of
disarray or upheaval involving either the usurpation of the Assyrian throne or
the assembling of forces in Babylonia in order to take the Assyrian throne.
Doubts about dating the AKL to Šamšī-Adad I have been raised in part by
the publication of a fragmentary Sumero-Babylonian literary bilingual text of
Middle Assyrian provenance. One section of this text relates to the AKL, and
the text as a whole should probably be assigned to the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta
I (1233‒1197 BCE), as he was the only Assyrian king “before 1000 B.C. known
to have had a scribe capable of Sumerian literary composition.”177 Further,
Lambert notes – and he was preceded by Cooper178 – that the text is closely
related stylistically and in its historical allusions to the bilingual prayers to the
god Aššur from the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I, and thus fits perfectly into the
context of literary creativity that characterized his rule.179 Lambert writes about
the author of this fragmentary bilingual tablet that he “obviously thought and
wrote first in Akkadian, and then produced a totally artificial rendering”180 in
Sumerian. Since the Akkadian of the text is Babylonian and not Assyrian, the
scribe in question was clearly a learned Babylonian scholar in the service of
King Tukultī-Ninurta I.
The first section of the bilingual Middle Assyrian text relates to the AKL and
summarizes the entries through to Tukultī-Ninurta I, while the second section
refers to Tukultī-Ninurta I’s deeds on behalf of the city of Aššur and the Aššur

174 Landsberger 1954, 33.

175 Yamada 1994, 15.
176 RIMA 1, A.0.40:12‒13: [ší-bi-i] [ṭ a-hi-tim?] la ší-ir [d][URU] A-šur “… a foreign plage, not of
the flesh of [the city] Aššur.”
177 Lambert 1976, 86.
178 Cooper 1971, 2.
179 Erroneously cited as KAR 118 and 119, as already noted by Yamada 1994, 12 with fn. 4.
180 Lambert 1976, 86.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 137

temple in particular, for which Tukultī-Ninurta I claims to have maintained the

regular offerings and increased their amounts. Special concern for the Aššur
temple is also evident in the third section, which consists of a detailed account
of Tukultī-Ninurta I’s adornments for the Aššur temples in Aššur and Kār-Tukul-
tī-Ninurta. This section thus has an intertextual relationship with a parallel sec-
tion in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic181 that describes the booty from Babylonia that
was dedicated to the Aššur temple and used in its refurbishment. The first sec-
tion of the bilingual text can only have been written on the basis of the AKL,
which must therefore have existed in some form by the time of Tukultī-Ninurta
I despite the fact that all known exemplars are Neo-Assyrian in date.182 While
use of the AKL reveals the historical knowledge of the scholar who wrote the
bilingual text, this knowledge was only used to establish a framework for the
deeds of Tukultī-Ninurta I recounted in the following sections.
From Tukultī-Ninurta I’s royal inscriptions it is clear that the provisioning
of the Aššur temples only took place after his conquest of Babylon. Tukultī-
Ninurta I’s emphasis on his maintenance of the regular offerings might there-
fore be intended to divert his audience’s attention from the fact that he actually
deprived Aššur of resources in order to build his new capital Kār-Tukultī-Ninur-
ta and to transfer the cult of Aššur to his new residence.
It is deplorable that the bilingual Middle Assyrian text is so badly pre-
served because, like the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, is appears to have included cer-
tain tropes of Assyrian ideological discourse that were integrated into the com-
memorative inscriptions only during the much later Sargonid period. Among
these tropes is the notion of truth and cosmic order as represented in the term
kittu (obv. 9), which amounts to ensuring an atmosphere of civic order so that
‘people did what was pleasing to the gods’ (obv. 10). The account of the restora-
tion and sumptuous adornment of the Aššur temple in the bilingual text occu-
pies most of the preserved text and immediately follows the trope of the estab-
lishment of civic and cosmic order. This is reminiscent of Gudea’s building
hymn, which uses a utopian vision of peace and social justice as the framework
for constructing the divine abode of the god Ningirsu.
The author of the bilingual text is familiar with the typical “chaîne opéra-
toire”183 of the ideological presentation of the image of the ideal king. Addi-
tionally, his use of the term bala for the kings preceding Tukultī-Ninurta I in
the first section of the text signals intimate knowledge of Babylonian tradition
as reflected in the Babylonian King Lists A and B, which build on the Sumerian

181 See Foster 2005, 315 f. col. vi.

182 See fn. 160.
183 See the discussion in Chapter 7.
138 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

King List. On the other hand, the use of the term ugula for the rulers of Aššur
reveals knowledge of a local tradition typical of the city of Aššur. When using
the term ina šangûtīya, “in my administration, lit. ‘during my priesthood,’” to
refer to the king’s reign, the scribe follows a practice introduced in the Assyrian
royal inscriptions of the Middle Assyrian period.184
Below follows the text in full, as it is of great importance to later historio-
graphic and literary textual production in Assyria and reflects the author’s
broad command of both Sumero-Babylonian and Assyrian tradition:

BM 98496
Obverse
 1 … their dynasty (bala).[…
 2 To the dynasty (bala) of six kings …
 3 [With their 77 names … […
 4 In their total of 40 kings 24 filiations …[…
 5 From the beginning to the “going out” of the dynasty (bala) of Sulili, up to the
dynasty of […]
 6 In their administration (nam-sanga) the duties of the “overseers” in the
presence of Aššur were pleasing to him, and he confirmed them for ever.
 7 In my administration (nam-sanga.mu/šangûtīya) the regular offerings to
the gods were established:
 8 I added to them and did not diminish, I multiplied and did not reduce.
 9 By the wisdom which Ea decreed for me, truth (níg-zi/kittu), the …. of the gods,
was born with me;
10 People did what was pleasing to the gods.
11 At that time two lofty matching Lahmus, as bright as the day, were raised up on
shining pedestals,
12 (Also) 21 … tall of stature and high,
13 (And) five broad-chested lions.
14 By the [….] …. of Nunnamnir, the exalted,
15 ….] were placed right and left.
Reverse
 1 …] at its … […
 2 …] they made well.
 3 I brought forth at its side …………………………[…
 4 ……….] ……… I brought forth with big body and fiery (?) limbs,
 5 Clothed in terror, ……. with an aura, …. is put on them,
 6 They are fiery (?), awe-inspiring in their prancing (?),
 7 With fierce countenance, …. limbs, and glaring glances,
 8 Who put to death the evil one, are joined to fell the disobedient [….
 9 ………… fierce .[….
10 Equipped with divine terror and aura . [……
11 The temple Ehursgkurkurra [………….] …. [….

184 See Chapter 5.2.

 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 139

Returning to the question of the origin of the AKL, it seems more plausible to
date the text to the time when Assyria became part of the community of great
powers in the Late Bronze Age. Although Shigeo Yamada is certainly correct
in assuming that the entry in the AKL regarding Šamšī-Adad I reflects know-
ledge of the eponym chronicles, both of the eponyms it lists are in fact wrong
and cannot have come from the Mari Eponym Chronicle.185 If this section of the
AKL hails from Šamšī-Adad I’s reign, one would expect that such data would
have been used correctly. The recent discovery of fragments of the Sumerian
King List in Šamšī-Adad I’s royal seat Šubat-Enlil/Tell Leilan does suggest that
there was historiographic interest among his scholars,186 which could conceiv-
ably have been maintained into later periods. In this context it should be men-
tioned that Aššur-uballiṭ I’s (1353‒1318 BCE) scholar (ṭupšar šarri) was of Baby-
lonian origin and educated in the Sumero-Babylonian tradition.187 This individ-
ual could thus have been perfectly suited for writing a king list like the AKL,
which has intertextual links with the Sumerian King List and the list of The
Rulers of Lagash. All of these lists use the phrase “he exercised kingship for x
years,” mu x i₃-ak / x MU.MEŠ šarrūta īpuš, a phrase alien to the Babylonian
King Lists. Use of this phrase in the AKL is thus evidence that its author was
steeped in Sumero-Babylonian tradition and, in addition, had knowledge of
the Assyrian eponym tradition. Further, knowledge might have been preserved
regarding Šamšī-Adad I’s association with the Hābūr Plains188 and his resi-
dence in Tell Leilan, so that the author of the AKL was motivated to begin the
list with a pastoralist section similar to that of the Genealogy of Hammurabi,
which also evokes tribal origins.
Yamada suggests that because Šamšī-Adad I and Bēlu-bāni were outsiders
who had usurped the throne of Aššur, they were in particular need of legitima-
tion.189 The AKL would therefore have served their ideological purpose of iden-
tification with the local royal line of Aššur. The AKL, however, is dispassionate
about usurpers, and in some royal inscriptions both Sulilu and Bēlu-bāni are
even referred to as founders of a dynasty.190 Moreover, from the intertextual
point of view it can be argued that the AKL was redacted only in the time of

185 I thank Nele Ziegler for this information, which she provided in a talk on Šamšī-Adad I
at ISAW on April 12th, 2013 in my workshop on Assyria in Ancient and Modern Historiography.
186 Vincente 1995.
187 Wiggermann 2008.
188 Eidem 2011, 2.
189 Yamada 1994, 23‒29.
190 Piotr Michalowski, “The Mesopotamian King Lists: History in the Making,” talk given at
the ISAW workshop Ancient and Modern Perspectives on Historiography in Mesopotamia,
April 12th, 2013.
140 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE) or shortly before him, as Shalmaneser I is the

first king who mentions Šamšī-Adad I in his inscriptions in the context of Dis-
tanzangaben regarding the restoration of the Aššur temple.191 It is also in Shal-
maneser I’s building inscription that Ušpia, the penultimate king of “the seven-
teen kings who lived in tents,” and Erišum I, known as builder of the Aššur
temple, appear for the first time in Assyrian royal inscriptions. The author of
Shalmaneser I’s inscription was clearly interested either in identifying several
stages of Assyrian history or in establishing an intertextual link with the AKL.
Such telescoping references to the early history of Aššur do not resurface until
the reign of Esarhaddon, where they occur in Esarhaddon’s inscription describ-
ing the rebuilding of the Aššur temple.192
Another purpose of the AKL, at least during the Neo-Assyrian period, ap-
pears to have been the recitation of the names of the royal line of Aššur in the
context of the ancestor cult or on the occasion of the ascension of a new king
to the throne, as was probably the case with the Genealogy of Hammurabi. A
cultic purpose of this kind is suggested by the reverse order of the kings in the
second section of the AKL, which covers the “forefathers” of Šamšī-Adad I, and
by the “amulet tablet” shape of two exemplars of the Neo-Assyrian king list.
As is clear from recent finds at Tell Taynat, this “amulet tablet” shape is the
shape of tablets that were hung on the walls of the temple for display purposes.
Yamada, however, assumes that such a purpose could only have been a sec-
ondary development on the grounds that the section in the AKL on Šamšī-
Adad I centers on chronographic information rather than on cultic prescrip-
tion.
Although the evidence speaks against the attribution of the Assyrian King
List to the reign of Šamšī-Adad I, his inscriptions do highlight his charismatic
and emblematic role in the conceptualization of Assyrian leadership. Essential
parts of his titulature continue to form the core of royal self-representation
during the Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian periods, and the attempt to stake
a claim for the glory of Aššur’s kingship is particularly characteristic of the
literary inscriptions of Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264) and Tukultī-Ninurta I, as is
clear from their historical epics. It should also be noted that several kings de-
cided to adopt Šamšī-Adad I’s name while others refer to his reign in their
Distanzangaben, including him in the lineage of their rightful restoration of the
temples.

191 RIMA 1, A.0.77.1, Šamšī-Adad I (l. 120) Ušpia (l. 113) and Erišum (l. 116). On Distanzanga-
ben see Naʾaman 1984. See also Chapter 4.3.
192 RINAP 4 no. 57.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 141

In contrast to the Assyrian royal inscriptions, the Neo-Assyrian chronicles

provide an unbiased account of imperial history and record events that did not
reflect well on the king, like the reference to the various rebellions that oc-
curred during the reign of Shalmaneser III. The purpose of these chronicles is
not yet known, although it has been suggested that they “were intended as
sources for creating omen apodoses.”193 However, as Alan Millard observes,
they “frequently give less specific information than the ‘historical’ references
found in omen texts.”194 Nevertheless, an intertextual relationship between the
Neo-Assyrian chronicles and the AKL, which only survives in Neo-Assyrian ex-
emplars, is highly probable, as the latter presents a comprehensive overview
of the history of Assyria that reaches into a tribal past and intends to be undis-
criminating. The chronicle-like reference to Šamšī-Adad I in the AKL can thus
be read as a foundational statement that evokes Assyria’s expansionist dynam-
ics under that charismatic king.

3.5.3.3 Šamšī-Adad I’s Rebuilding of the Aššur Temple and Aššur’s Enlilship
Šamšī-Adad I’s (1808‒1776 BCE) conquest of Aššur resulted in two major altera-
tions to the cultic topography of the city. One was the rebuilding of the former
Adad temple as a double temple dedicated to the gods Anu and Adad,195 and
the other was the rebuilding of the Aššur temple as a double temple dedicated
to the gods Enlil and Aššur alike, which is generally attributed to the influence
of Sumero-Babylonian tradition and is thus to be connected to the reign of
Šamšī-Adad I. The notion of Enlilship as the expression of divine leadership
was, however, apparently known in Aššur under Erišum I. When Erišum reno-
vated the Aššur temple, the name of the temple was ‘Wild Bull.’196 The epithet
‘wild bull’ is usually associated with Enlil, who might have been present in
Aššur before the reign of Šamšī-Adad I. This epithet occurs again in Šamšī-
Adad I’s stone tablets recording his restoration of the Aššur temple, in which
he refers to the Aššur temple as the temple of Enlil.197 He also reports that he
gave that temple the Sumerian ceremonial name é.am.kur.kur.ra ‘The Tem-
ple – Wild Bull of the Lands.’ It is on the basis of this inscription and the
archaeological evidence of a double temple that Peter Miglus has suggested
that the sanctuaries of Enlil and Aššur were combined into one double complex

193 Millard 1994, 6.

194 Millard 1994, 8.
195 Schwemer 2001, 242 f.
196 RIMA 1, A.0.33.10: 11‒13: [É]-tum [ri]-mu-um [šu]-um-šu.
197 RIMA 1, A.0.39.1: 52‒54.
142 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

under Šamšī-Adad I.198 What then should one make of the name ‘Wild Bull’ for
the Aššur temple under Erišum? Does it attest to the presence of the god Enlil
in the Aššur temple already by this time, or does it amount to a theological
statement about Aššur’s position as chief god of the city of Aššur through his
assumption of Enlilship, i.e. his adoption of leadership in the local pantheon
in the city of Aššur? Some of these aspects likely induced Šamšī-Adad I to
monumentalize the association of Aššur and Enlil in a double temple.
In addition to associating the cults of Enlil and Aššur, Šamšī-Adad I pur-
sued an interest in ensuring that the cult of the originally Sumero-Babylonian
god Enlil enjoyed equal standing in Aššur. This effort appears to have been
rooted in the cultural heritage of the Dynasty of Akkad, which Šamšī-Adad I
was eager to promote. The kings of Akkad associated themselves with the chief
god of the Sumerian pantheon in order to foster their legitimacy in the former
city states of southern Mesopotamia. A typical royal inscription of Narām-Sîn
of Akkad starts with the statement: “Enlil is his god, Abā, the young man
among the gods, is his family god.”199 Šamšī-Adad I’s eagerness to promote
the cult of Enlil is further apparent in the fact that he named his new royal seat
Šubat-Enlil (‘the seat of Enlil’). Still more, Šamšī-Adad I’s institutionalization
of the kispum-offering for Sargon and Narām-Sîn of Akkad in Mari bespeaks
his reverence for the kings of Akkad, whom he seems to have regarded as his
direct predecessors and from whom he appears to have felt that he derived his
power.200

3.5.3.4 The Kings of Akkad as Models for Ambitious Rulers

The evidence discussed in this chapter indicates the scale of Šamšī-Adad I’s
political ambitions and attests to his development and use of cultural discourse
to aid in the exercise of political control over a large territory.201 Although the
evidence is limited, the elaboration of Šamšī-Adad I’s titulary in line with his
expanding control over the territory of Upper Mesopotamia reflects the careful
and sophisticated choices made by his scholars in order to shape his image as
a successful and powerful king. Given Šamšī-Adad I’s origins in Akkad, it is
not surprising that his scholars looked to the kings of Akkad as prototypes

198 Miglus 1990.

199 FAOS 7, 226 Narāmsîn C 1.
200 Birot 1980; Durand/Guichard 1998; Charpin 2004b; beyond the evidence of the building
inscriptions, this claim is particularly apparent in the titulary chosen by Šamšī-Adad I in his
votive inscriptions found at Mari, which hark back to Akkadian tradition, see Charpin 1984.
201 Kupper 1985.
 Šamšı ̄-Adad I and Daduša 143

and models for kingship, thereby perpetuating and developing the specifically
Assyrian literarization of the kings of Akkad, which is known from the Old
Assyrian Sargon Legend found at Kültepe in distant Anatolia and is discussed
in the next chapter.202 In such literary texts, the kings of Akkad act as stand-
in personages representing the historical kings in whose times the legends
about the kings of Akkad were written.203 A similar phenomenon is apparent
during the reign of Daduša in the region of Ešnunna, where the library of Šad-
uppum/Tell Harmal yields a literary composition known as Sargon in Foreign
Lands. This text describes Sargon’s battle against the Hurrians in the region of
Mardaman, an area straddling the road through the Ṭur-ʿAbdin to Diyarbe-
kir.204 It should be noted in this regard that the copy of Sargon in Foreign Lands
found in Šaduppum/Tell Harmal is the only tablet known so far of this poem,
representing further testimony of both Ešnunna’s interest in the northern re-
gions and of scholarly interest in fashioning an ideological discourse based on
the kings of Akkad. Šamšī-Adad I’s interaction with Ešnunna continued after
the death of Daduša, as he attempted to renew his alliance with Ešnunna’s
new ruler Ibal-pi-El II and met with his messengers in the city of Aššur.205
The literarization of the kings of Akkad constitutes a widespread phenom-
enon that is attested in both the formerly Sumerian and in the Tigridian cultur-
al centers. In the latter group, this literarization appears to have originated
with the scholars working under Daduša in Ešnunna and under Narām-Sîn in
Aššur at the latest.206 Literarization of the kings of Akkad in Aššur might have
begun even earlier, as two rulers of Aššur adopted the names of Akkadian
kings, namely Sargon (1920‒1881 BCE) and Narām-Sîn (1872‒1829/19 BCE).207
This evidence identifies Tigridian ideological discourse as the direct precursor
of the epic tradition that is subsequently elaborated during the Middle Assyrian
period, culminating in the epics of Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264 BCE) and Tukultī-
Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE).

202 See Chapter 4.2.

203 Liverani 1993.
204 Westenholz 1997, 78‒93; note further that an Early Old Babylonian toponym list has been
found in Tell Harmal, which includes the name of Kaneš, testifying to an interest in the Anato-
lian horizon, see Dercksen 2005 with reference to Levy, Sumer 3, p. 79 v 161.
205 Charpin and Ziegler 2003, 130 with reference to ARM I 37:19‒28: “The man of Ešnunna
has written to me with regard to establishing an alliance (aššum napištim lapātim). I have
taken out one clause out of the tablet of the treaty (ṭuppi nīš ilī). I have sent (a new version)
to Ešnunna. The people of Ešnunna are obstructive and I have not received any news.”
206 The find at Kültepe predates Šamšī-Adad I as the house in which the Sargon text was
found was destroyed in about 1836 BCE.
207 For the chronology see Veenhof and Eidem 2008, 29.
144 The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

It has been my aim in this chapter to demonstrate that the diffusion of

cuneiform writing entailed the spread of Sumero-Babylonian tradition into the
north. This is evident not only in the Old Assyrian incantation tablets from
Aššur, which are written in Hymnic Epic Dialect, and in the Old Assyrian Sar-
gon Legend from Kültepe, but is also supported by the finds of fragments of
the Sumerian King List in Šubat-Enlil/Tell Leilan, the residence of Šamšī-
Adad I. These fragments are written in Babylonian script on tablets in a stan-
dard treaty format, and therefore suggest that there were Babylonian scribes
in the entourage of Šamšī-Adad I. The royal inscriptions from northern Syria,
Mari, Aššur, and the larger Tigridian area, however, indicate that deliberate
choices were made in the formulation of local cultural discourse in these re-
gions. These choices reveal the existence of a northern Mesopotamian tradition
that formed the cultural framework for the development of a typical Assyrian
royal ideology. The finds of scholarly texts at the palace library of Tigunānum
including ritual and divinatory texts of the sixteenth century and the Assyro-
Mitannian tablets found at Bogazköy dating to the fourteenth century BCE rep-
resent further important vestiges of Tigridian or Assyrian scholarship active in
the service of the elites before the time of Adad-nīrārī I and Tukultī-Ninurta I
when such interaction is undisputed.
Two tropes that were characteristic of the Assyrian conceptualization of
kingship emerged already during the second half of the third millennium: the
king as steward of the god Aššur, which expressed his accountability to the
divine world, and his intimate relationship with Ištar. These tropes persisted
into the Old Assyrian period, i.e. the first two centuries of the second millenni-
um BCE when Aššur played a major role as a hub in the trade of tin.
There was major ideological innovation in the eighteenth century, when
Šamšī-Adad I managed to build his kingdom in Upper Mesopotamia. Šamšī-
Adad I’s expansion resulted in the importation and adoption of Old Akkadian
tradition on the one hand and in intense cultural interaction between Aššur,
Ešnunna, and Mari on the other. Consequently, Babylonian tradition spread
northward and westward. The association of the god Aššur with Enlil, which
was promoted by Šamšī-Adad I through his building of the double temple in
the city of Aššur, firmly established Aššur’s Enlilship in the Assyrian pantheon.
Ideologically, the way was thus clear for claiming universal rather than merely
local dominion by extending Aššur’s local role to the universal dimensions
represented by Enlil. As stewards of the local god Aššur, Assyrian kings were
entitled to rule the narrowly conceived land of Aššur; as stewards of Aššur/
Enlil, Assyrian kings could claim to rule totality. This new conceptualization
was of primary ideological importance to Assyria’s expansion during the Mid-
dle Assyrian period.
4 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

KA₅.A lapān dŠamši ēkīam illak “Where can the fox go to get away from the sun?”
Esarhaddon, (Leichty, RINAP 1 v 25)

4.1 What is ‘Universal Control’?

In the preceding chapter we saw the dynamics between sociopolitical condi-
tions and royal ideological discourse during the early history of Aššur, when
it became a major player among its peers in northern Mesopotamia and Syria.
In this chapter I will discuss the central trope of Assyrian religion, i.e. Aššur’s
command to expand the borders of the empire and ultimately to align the terri-
tory controlled by Aššur with the cosmos. As we saw in the last chapter, this
trope was common to both Aššur and Ešnunna in the Old Babylonian period.
In the Mesopotamian weltanschauung, any force that disrupted the social order
had to be pushed toward the periphery of the controlled territory and beyond
it, either by means of war or through ritual action. Establishing and maintain-
ing order and eliminating disruptive forces was, therefore, the primary task of
the king, whose duty it was to harmonize the condition of the world with the
ideal primeval order created by the gods. This task situated the king at the
threshold between history and the mythological and emblematic, helping to
explain the recurrent use of the tropes of the king as hunter, as warrior, as
caretaker of the cult, and as shepherd of his people.
The opening lines of Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn, which reflect the
theological superstructure underpinning the institution of Assyrian kingship,
illustrate the notion that it is the king’s mission to subdue the entire universe
and place it under his rule. It reveals that “the border moved forward by the
king is not simply a state border, it is the demarcation between order and cha-
os, peace and turbulence, justice and violence”1:

May Šamaš, king of heaven and earth, elevate you to shepherdship over the four [region]s
(kibrāt erbetti)!
May Aššur, who ga[ve y]ou [the scepter], lengthen your days and years!
Spread your land wide at your feet!2

1 Liverani 1990, 57.

2 SAA 3 no. 11:1‒3.
146 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Fig. 22: Ashurnaṣirpal II, Nimrud, Throne Room (Photo: British Museum, ME 124531, Courtesy
British Museum).

Articulating the mission of kingship by combining the notion of shepherdship

(rēʾûtu) with the claim of imperial control (kibrāt erbettim) is a conscious and
deliberate choice, and it frames the present investigation. In the Neo-Assyrian
period, the imperial claim to universal rule was inextricably tied to the notion
of divine universality, which is visually symbolized by the winged disk that
represents the national god Aššur (fig. 22). This iconography is a signifier for
universal control on the one hand,3 and for the divine command to establish
social order within the known and controlled world on the other. Furthermore,
in Mesopotamian religion the conceptualization of the cosmic order was mod-
elled on the social order, entailing interdependence between human action
and the dynamics of the cosmic order decreed by the gods.4 Consequently, in
this weltanschauung the king’s ordering of the world was the fulfillment of the
original divine plan, implying that everything and everyone had their proper

3 Pongratz-Leisten 2011a and 2013c.

4 Pongratz-Leisten 2013b.
 What is ‘Universal Control’? 147

position within the larger cosmic and social system. This notion involves a
perception of controlled space in which any difference between the center and
the periphery must be eliminated. By extending the borders of empire into un-
familiar lands, the distinction between the known and the unknown is elimi-
nated. In other words, the empire becomes coextensive with the earth through
the subjection of previously uncontrolled territories. Indeed, this is the mission
of Assyrian kingship as promulgated in the Assyrian coronation ritual. More-
over, this notion demands total alignment in the intentionality and action of
the gods and the king, and it is this understanding of reality that generated
the entire discourse of royal ideology.
The first step of this analysis consists of a diachronic investigation of the
particular terminology used in the ancient inscriptions to express territorial
control, which will serve to determine when it is possible to speak of an actual
claim to imperial control. An investigation of this kind requires a thorough
examination of the meaning of the terms kiššatu, ‘totality,’ and kibrāt erbettim.
The latter literally means ‘four banks’ and originally designated the banks of
the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, but in modern translations it is generally ren-
dered as ‘the four regions of the world’ or as ‘the universe.’ While it is certainly
true that at some point kibrāt erbettim acquired the meaning assigned to it by
most modern translators, use of this term in earlier periods to convey the king’s
control of inhabited space suggests a more discriminating reading.
The language of the Sumerian royal inscriptions distinguishes between ter-
ritory that is controlled by Sumerian city states, which is expressed by the term
kalam, and territories subject to foreign lands, which are identified as kur.kur.5
These foreign lands were known though trade and/or from military conflicts.
The distinction between the two categories is obvious in Lugalzagesi’s Vase
Inscription, which was dedicated to the chief god Enlil following a military
victory. Lugalzagesi’s Vase Inscription distinguishes between territory con-
trolled by the gods and territory controlled by man, the former including the
foreign lands while the latter corresponds to the city states of Sumer. Toward
the end of the Early Dynastic period, Lugalzagesi, originally king of Ereš and
Umma, as reflected in his title “lú-mah priest of Nisaba,”6 conquered the city
states of Ur and Uruk and then defeated the city state of Lagaš. As a result,
Lugalzagesi was effectively in control over the larger part of the region south
of Babylonia.7 In Lugalzagesi’s ideological discourse this major political

5 Wilcke 1990, 470‒71.

6 For the argument that Ereš was the home town of Lugalzagesi and his father Bubu, as its
patron deity Nisaba was their family deity, see Steinkeller 2003, 621‒24.
7 Van de Mieroop 2007, 48.
148 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

achievement, which for the first time brought a large territory under the control
of one polity, was linked to the claim of universal control expressed in a meta-
phor of the chief god Enlil, who was said to have placed all the foreign lands
under his foot from sunrise to sunset:

When the god Enlil, king of all the (foreign) lands (kur-kur-ra), gave Lugalzagesi kingship
of the land (nam-lugal-kalam-ma), directed the eyes of the land toward him, brought
down the (foreign) lands (kur-kur) at his feet, and made them submit to him from sunrise
to sunset, at that time, from the Lower Sea, along the Tigris and Euphrates, to the Upper
Sea, he put their roads in good order for him. From sunrise to sunset Enlil did not allow
him any rival.8

This passage demonstrates the close connections between Enlil, the institution
of kingship, and cosmic leadership. Enlil’s kingship among the gods was estab-
lished by the Fara Period at the latest, as the za₃-mi₃ hymns relate that Enlil is
the one who separates heaven from earth. In the Kesh Hymn, likewise attested
in the Early Dynastic Period in a version from Abu Salabīḥ, Enlil “emerges from
his house/temple as the princely lord in his royalty” (nám-nun-e nám-nun-e
é-ta nam-ta-ab-è den-líl nám-nun-e é-ta nam-ta-ab-è nám-nun-e nam-lugal-la
é-ta nam-ta-ab-è).9 These early literary texts thus reveal a notion of divine king-
ship that aligns with the ambitions of the earthly rulers.
Lugalzagesi’s explicit mention of control over the territory along the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, i.e. along the river banks that ‘link’ the area between the
Upper Sea and the Lower Sea, refers to control over all of the major cities
located along these rivers and thus anticipates the title ‘king of the land (of
Sumer),’ lugal-kalam-ma. This region is juxtaposed with the foreign lands (kur-
kur), pointing to a clear notion of the cultural cohesion of the south in contrast
to the surrounding areas of the Iranian plateau and the Arabian desert. Inter-
estingly, in his titulary Lugalzagesi juxtaposes the conquest of territory with
the city of Uruk, the cultic center of the goddess Inanna, patron deity of king-
ship. He is “Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk, king of the land,” Lugalzagesi lugal-
unu.KI-ga lugal-kalam-ma, implicitly citing Inanna’s favor as a foundation for
his legitimate kingship.10
Accordingly, use of the metaphor of the ‘four banks’ in the “First Empire
of Akkad” did not represent something altogether novel, but was rather the

8 My translation largely follows Frayne in RIME 1, E1.14.20.1.

9 Unfortunately this particular line is broken away in the early version, see Biggs 1971; quoted
after the OB version ETCSL 4.80.2: 1‒3.
10 RIME 1, E1.14.20.1:3‒5.
 What is ‘Universal Control’? 149

product of ongoing conceptual development.11 In the Bassetki statue inscrip-

tion of King Narām-Sîn of Akkad, for instance, Narām-Sîn boasts of having
defeated the city states of the south who had risen against him in a major
revolt:

Narām-Sîn, the Mighty,

king of Akkade:
When the four banks (kibrātum arbaʾum)
All together revolted against him,
He won nine battles in only one year
Through the love Ištar showed to him
And he captured the kings
Who had risen against him.12
Because he (Narām-Sîn) preservered the foundations of his city (in
Times) of danger, (the residents of) his city requested
from Inanna/Ištar in Eanna13 (in Uruk),
from Enlil in Nippur, from Dagan in Tuttul,
from Ninhursag in Keš,
from Enki/Ea in Eridu,
from Sîn in Ur,
from Šamaš in Sippar,
(and) from Nergal in Kutha,
that he be (made) the god of their city Akkad,
and that they built his temple
within Akkad.

Like Lugalzagesi, Narām-Sîn references Inanna/Ištar first, before the inscrip-

tion proceeds with a list of all the cultic enters of Sumer and beyond that Nar-
ām-Sîn brought under his control. The choice of Inanna/Ištar heading the list
of gods was based in his special devotion for that deity; additionally, the fact
that the ruler of Uruk, Amar-girid, had been one of the main leaders of the
insurrection might have impacted the particular structure of the list of deities.14
Similarly, during the late Early Dynastic period the title ‘king of Kiš’ (lugal
kiški) emerges, playing on the homophony of the city name Kīš and the Akkadi-
an word for ‘totality’ (kiššatu); this homophonous relationship allows the royal

11 Hasselbach 2005, 4 fn. 25 with reference to Steinkeller 1993, 113 who considers the Uruk-
Expansion to be a possible precursor of this development, albeit as a commercial rather than
a political phenomenon; Nissen 1993, 93 and Liverani 1993, 3 argue for larger territorial units.
12 After Gelb (†)/Kienast 1990, 81, Narām-Sîn 1:1‒19.
13 Written 25) íś-te₄ 26) dINANNA 27) in É.AN.NA-ki-im; for the reading of É.AN.NA-ki-im as
Ayakku and its interpretation as an alternative name for Uruk see Beaulieu 2002.
14 See also Beaulieu, Ibid.
150 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

title ‘king of Kīš’ to signify universal control.15 The ‘totality’ implied by the title
includes only a number of city states such as Uruk and Ur, or, in other cases,
Kīš and Akšak, and might therefore appear limited from our modern perspec-
tive. Nevertheless, these cities represented major political centers competing
for control over water resources as well as centers of learning bound together
by a common weltanschauung. As such, when King Lugalkiginnedudu of Uruk
assumed the title ‘king of Kīš’ in a dedicatory inscription to Inanna of Nippur,
he might have been in control of the other city states of the south through
conquest or treaty arrangements.16 Joan Westenholz emphasizes the fact that
the few southern kings who claim the title ‘king of Kīš,’ among them Eannatum
of Lagaš and Mesannepada of Ur, all credit Inanna with having granted them
kingship.17 Eannatum states this explicitly: “to Eannatum, the ruler of Lagaš,
the goddess Inanna, because she loved him so, gave the kingship of Kīš to him
in addition to the rulership of Lagaš.”18 The origins of the concept of hegemon-
ic control by the grace of Inanna can thus be traced back to the early history
of the Sumerian city states, when they were still competing with each other for
supremacy.19 Following his conquest of southern Mesopotamia, Sargon, the
first king and founder of the empire of Akkad, clearly understood this concept,
since his titulary begins with the titles ‘bailiff of Inanna, king of totality,’ mašk-
im.gi₄ dinanna lugal kiš, before proceeding with the established titles ‘anointed
priest of An, lord of the land, chief governor of Enlil,’ pa₄.šeš an / lugal ka-
lam.ma.ki ensi₂.gal den.líl.20
At least in the second half of the third millennium and in the first half of
the second millennium, a distinction was made between the actual control of
territory, implying political and cultural integration (kalam), and simple forays
into peripheral regions beyond the heartland (kur). The textual evidence sug-
gests that it was the combination of control over the city states and contact
with more distant regions that was expressed by the title ‘king of totality (kišša-
tu).’ Distant regions were known through trade and military action, and might
have been incorporated into networks of control as subjected vassals and/or

15 Westenholz 2000, 77.

16 RIME 1, E1.14.14.2:3. See the interesting Lugalkiginnedudu’s interesting remark made in
ll. 5‒14: when the goddess Inanna combined lordship with kingship for Lugalkiginnedudu, he
exercised lordship (nam-en) in Uruk and kingship (nam-lugal) in Ur’ reflecting the different
customs of designating rulership in these cities.
17 RIME 1, E1.13.5.1:2.
18 RIME 1, E1.9.3.5 v 23‒vi 5.
19 Westenholz 2000, 77.
20 RIME 2, E2.1.1.1.
 What is ‘Universal Control’? 151

by means of interdynastic marriages.21 The ideological discourse, however,

blurs the distinction between the actual control that was exercised over cities
along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and what can at most have been tempo-
rary or very partial control over the foreign lands described by the tropes “from
sunrise to sunset” and “from the lower sea to the upper sea.” These tropes
conveyed the image of a cosmic totality (kiššatu) that was culturally and politi-
cally integrated. This programmatic weltanschauung, which was already con-
ceptualized in the time of Lugalzagezi, was propagated systematically by the
kings of Akkad, who not only transformed Mesopotamia politically by intro-
ducing a complex and unified administrative structure but also inscribed a new
vision of the world into the most remote mountain sides in the form of steles
and rock reliefs.22 During the Ur III period, the term ma-da was introduced,
which is a Semitic loan word designating the concept of ‘territory, countryside,
march, frontier (area),’ but not yet ‘homeland,’ (= Akkadian notion) as is the
case under the kings of the Isin Dynasty.23 Although later bilingual lexical texts
equate kur rather than kalam with the Akkadian mātum, it is the Sumerian
kalam and Akkadian mātum that share the notion of a “land” as a political
entity comprised of a particular people. Later Assyrian royal inscriptions illu-
minate this understanding by alternating between the terms “land” (mātu) and
“prince” (rubû) to represent a political community when referring to enemies
vanquished during military campaigns:

Aššur, the great god, has entrusted me a kingship without rival, and has made my weap-
ons powerful above all those who dwell in palaces. From the upper sea of the setting sun
to the lower sea of the rising sun he has made the four quarters submit to my feet.24

From the very moment that an attempt to exercise hegemonic control is appar-
ent in the inscriptions of the Early Dynastic and Old Akkadian periods, it is
clear that the term kiššatu is used metaphorically to align the known world
with the cosmos. The term kibrāt erbettim had not yet acquired a comparable
meaning in these early periods.25 Instead, it remained restricted to the four
river banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris.

21 Glassner 1984; Ataç 2013.

22 Michalowski 2010a, 152 f.
23 Michalowski 2011, 125 f. with n. 6.
24 OIP II, 66 ll. 2‒3.
25 For a different interpretation see Glassner 1984 and Ataç 2013, 393.
152 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

4.2 Controlling the Land between the Rivers:

The Sargon Legend and the First Macro-Regional State
under Šamšī-Adad I
Until the Old Babylonian period, the Euphrates and Tigris rivers remained the
dominant geographical reference points for kings, who mapped their regional
control only along the river banks. The first explicit reference to control over
the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers is from the reign of Šamšī-
Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE) and is found in a vase inscription dedicated to the god
Dagan:

[dutu]-ši-d[iškur]
 2 ˹lugal˺ da-[núm]
ša-ki-in d[en-líl]
 4 ensi₂ da-š[ur]
na-ra-am dda-g[an]
 6 mu-uš-te-em-k[i ma-]a-tim
bi-ri-it i7idigna
 8 ù i7buranun-na
ru-ba [ma-r]iki
10 lugal é-ká[l-la-ti]mki
ša-ki-in š[u-ba-at-de]n-lí]lki
12 tu-a-mi a-na [dd]a-gán
ù ša-ku-la-at […]
14 [x] x da-šur a-n[a …]
(…)
rev.
na-ru-x x x […]27
[Šam]šī-[Adad],
mig[hty king],
governor of Enlil,
steward of Aššur,
beloved of Dag[an],
unifier/pacifi[er26 of the [la]nd
between the Tigris
and the Euphrates,
prince of [Mar]i,
king of Ekal[latu]m,
governor of Šubat-Enlil,
twin vase for [D]agan
and the tākultum-banquets
… Aššur …

As is discussed in Chapter Three, Šamšī-Adad I is known for his establishment

of a macro-regional state. By forging a triangle of control with three centers of
power, namely Šubat-Enlil, Ekallatum, and Mari, Šamšī-Adad I abandoned the
idea of a territorial state as an outgrowth of a former city state in favor of the
ingenious concept of the macro-regional state, which was based on a two-level
monarchy in which he was the ‘great king’ and his two sons were his co-
regents with control over their own distinct territories. Šamšī-Adad I’s ‘totality’
extended from the west to the east, as represented by expeditions to distant
regions, like the Mediterranean shore in the west and Tukriš in the east, some-

26 See AHw II, 643 s.v. mekû; Šamšī-Adad I uses the same epithet in his inscription on stone
tablets from the Aššur temple, see RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:5‒6.
27 Charpin 1984, 50‒51.
 Controlling the Land between the Rivers 153

where in north-west Iran. In Šamšī-Adad I’s inscriptions the notion of a north

to south axis is absent, and this exclusion implicitly reflects the political reality
of Babylonian expansion under the Old Babylonian dynasty, which prevented
Šamšī-Adad I from advancing southward in a meaningful way:

At that time I received the tribute of the kings of Tukriš and of the king of the Upper
Land, within my city, Aššur. I set up my great name and my monumental inscription in
the land Lebanon on the shore of the Great Sea.28

By setting up a stele in Lebanon, Šamšī-Adad I emulated the practice of the

kings of Akkad and claimed an idealized control over the westernmost periph-
ery – namely the Mediterranean Sea – by carving his monument into the land-
scape. Šamšī-Adad I’s pairing of the Mediterranean shore with the eastern re-
gion of Tukriš to substantiate his claim to the title ‘king of totality’ is a striking
choice. Adopted from the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend, this literary trope re-
flected political reality only in part, as it was only in the first millennium BCE
that the Assyrians could claim effective control over the regions to the west of
the Euphrates. The intertextuality between Šamšī-Adad I’s inscription and the
Old Assyrian Sargon Legend is one of the earliest manifestations of the relation-
ship between literary texts and royal inscriptions, as in this case a literary text
provides the model for a particular trope used in a royal inscription.
The Old Assyrian Sargon Legend was recovered from the private house of
a merchant in Kaneš/Kültepe and predates the inscription of Šamšī-Adad I.29
Its find spot has led almost all of the earlier editors of the text to assume that
it is a parody transmitted by Assyrian merchants to Anatolia. Dercksen, Alster,
Oshima, and Westenholz have taken a different approach. Dercksen assumes
an Assyrian origin of the text in the city of Aššur and considers it a token of
the cultural contacts between Aššur and Akkad. This view explains why two
early rulers of Aššur – Sargon and Narām-Sîn – borrowed their names from the
rulers of Akkad and wrote their names with the divine determinative in their
official seals.30 Although some of the text’s Sumero-Babylonian motifs suggest
that it could have been written in Babylon rather than in Aššur, Dercksen is of
the opinion that the geographical names it records reflect a northern horizon.
He further emphasizes that the text is Old Assyrian in language and orthogra-

28 RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:73‒87.
29 Since it was first published by Cahit Günbatti 1997, this text has been the subject of several
translations and studies: Van de Mieroop 2000, Hecker 2001, Cavigneaux 2005, Foster 2005,
Alster and Oshima 2007; Westenholz 2007b; Liverani 2010.
30 Dercksen 2005. In this assumption Dercksen follows Veenhof 2003, 44.
154 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

phy and, in contrast to Old Assyrian incantations,31 shows no features of the

Babylonian hymno-epic dialect. Because of the uniqueness of the Old Assyrian
Sargon Legend, the ancient epic is quoted in full, mostly following Dercksen’s
translation and his division of the text according to literary tropes:

Introduction
King Sargon, king of Agade the metropolis (rebītum),32 mighty king, who discusses with
the gods. Adad gave him strength, and as a result I (!) took possession of the land from
East to West and on one single day I did battle with seventy cities; I captured their rulers
and I destroyed their cities.

The first feat: Sargon the hunter and athlete

I swear by Adad, the lord of strength, and by Ištar, the lady of battle! I saw a gazelle and
I threw a brick into the river. But while I was running, my girdle broke; I attached a
snake, ran on and caught the gazelle. (Then) I took the brick out of the water.

The second feat: Sargon the provider

I swear by Adad and Ištar! Every day I truly slaughter one thousand oxen and six thou-
sand sheep. I did indeed slaughter daily. Seven thousand (are) my heroes who are daily
eating brisket in my presence. Three thousand are my runners who are eating loins. A
thousand are my cupbearers who are daily eating marrow from shanks until they are
satisfied. … invited (them) and my seven thousand heroes ate brisket. For the last man
brisket was found lacking; he slaughtered his ox from Kušamman that belonged to his
travel seat and he gave brisket to the last man. My cook let mediocre meat burn and as a
punishment he slaughtered one hundred oxen two hundred, and I fed it to my servants.

The third feat: Sargon resisting darkness

I swear by Adad and Ištar! For seven years, one month and fifteen days I stayed in dark-
ness, together with my army. When I came out, indeed I did take a measuring rod (deco-
rated with) carnelian and lapis lazuli, and indeed I divided the land; I divided the Huma-
num33 mountain in two parts and put up my statue between them as a (marking) stake.

The fourth feat: Sargon the conquering hero

The prince of Tukriš I dressed in an animal skin. As for (the men of) Hudura:34 I applied
a slave mark to their heads. As for (the men of) Alašiya: I covered their heads like that of
a woman. Of the Amorites I destroyed their penis instead of cutting off their noses. I tied
the heads of the Kilarites35 with a leather strap. I released the sutuhhu of the …. I shaved

31 Veenhof 1996 and Michel 2004.

32 As pointed out by Dercksen, the word rebītum occurs as an epithet for cities in Old Babylo-
nian texts, and is also used as an epithet for Akkad in the Prologue of Hammurabi’s Law Code;
it is further attested in opposition to kārum ‘colony’ in Old Assyrian texts, and interestingly
also occurs in Daduša’s inscription as a designation for Qabara, see Dercksen 2005, 111‒112.
33 Mount Humanum is not to be confused with the Amanus Mountains and is probably to be
sought on the Euphrates route to the west, see Dercksen 2005, 114.
34 Hudura seems to be a place near Puruškhanda in central Anatolia and Amurru could desig-
nate the region of Jebel Bishri, where the Amorites originated.
35 Kilarium is attested in Old Assyrian texts but its location is unknown.
 Controlling the Land between the Rivers 155

the scalp of (the men of) Hattum.36 I pinched the men of Luhme with a toggle-pin. As for
the (women of) Gutium (and the men of) Lullu(bu)m37 and Hahhum:38 I slit open their
clothes.

Conclusion and praise

I touched the three posts of heaven with my hands. Why should I increase words on
(other) tablets? Does Anum not know me? Let them increase the regular offerings to me,
because I have been king and conquered the Upper and Lower Country. How I am king,
(and) how I took the lower and upper country. Adad is king.39

Situating the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend in a northern Mesopotamian horizon

on geographical grounds is supported by the oath formula repeatedly used in
this text, which is addressed to the divine pair of the weather god Adad, who
played a prominent role in Syria and northern Mesopotamia, and Ištar. The
combination of Adad, written diškur, and Ištar is reminiscent of the Hurrian
divine pair Teššub, who could also be represented by the iškur sign, and Ištar-
Šauška. As already discussed in Chapter Two, the combination of Ištar and
Adad occurs for the first time in the reign of the Hurrian king Tiš-atal in Urkeš
in a curse formula; after Belat-Nagar, the local hypostasis of Ištar-Šauška in
Nagar, and the sun god Šimige (dutu-ga-an),40 this curse formula mentions
Teššub written with the Sumerogram diškur. Daniel Schwemer has empha-
sized that already during the Old Babylonian period Adad/Teššub was venerat-
ed together with Ištar/Šauška rather than with Hebat in northern Mesopotamia,
which is also true in the Tiš-atal inscription. To be sure, it is not always clear
whether Ištar/Šauška figured as Adad/Teššub’s spouse or sister. Further, bless-
ings in the Mitannian correspondence of the Amarna period reveal the cou-
pling of Adad with Ištar/Šauška,41 and the divine pair is also attested in the
Hurro-Akkadian milieu of the eastern Tigridian region of Arrapha.42 As such,
the decision of the authors of the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend – who were

36 Hattum is reminsicent of Hatti and appears together with Lullu(bu)m as one of the enemies
of Narām-Sîn.
37 If Lullu(bu)m is to be equated with Lullubum, it should be located in the eastern Tigridian
region, and thus would evoke the image of opposite ends.
38 The location of Hahhum is assumed to be in northern Syria, somewhere northeast of Adiya-
man at a crossing of the Euphrates; see van de Mieroop 2000, 151 ff. As can be gleaned from
itineraries, Hahhum was one of the stations of the Assyrian trade route into Anatolia, see
Veenhof 2008, 12.
39 Dercksen 2005, 108‒110.
40 Wilhelm 1998; Schwemer 2001, 445.
41 See the letters of King Tušratta sent to Amenenhotep III and Amenenhotep IV, referred to
by Schwemer 2001, 460.
42 Schwemer 2001, 460.
156 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

probably scholars working at the court of the ruler of Aššur – to direct that
text’s oath formula to Adad and Ištar demonstrates that they operated in a
northern Mesopotamian cultural milieu; in Assyrian ideological discourse, the
pairing of Adad and Ištar persisted into the Middle Assyrian period.43 Dercksen
also notes that the martial role assigned to Adad in the text is unusual and
alien to southern Mesopotamian tradition, although the Old Assyrian Sargon
Legend does share this notion with Daduša’s royal inscription.44 This corrobo-
rates my thesis that there existed a distinct Tigridian cultural discourse.
In the fourth feat described in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend, the author
maps Sargon’s ‘conquered’ territory far into Anatolia and on an east-west axis,
specifically from Tukriš in the eastern Tigridian region and Gutium in the Za-
gros mountains to Alašiya (=Cyprus) in the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to
shedding light on the geographical conception of the “totality” controlled by
Sargon, this literary composition is of utmost importance to the cultural dis-
course and later literary production centered on the Assyrian king, as it antici-
pates the emphasis on the king as hunter and warrior and focuses primarily
on his masculinity and power. Moreover, as already noted by Dercksen, Alster,
and Oshima,45 the text was written by a well-educated scribe and abounds
in literary allusions. These allusions include Sargon’s experience of the sun’s
darkening, which references Sargon the Conquering Hero and Sargon in Foreign
Lands, a text found in Tell Harmal and in omen literature (l. 42 in the third
feat);46 the mention of the measuring rod, which references the Sumerian ver-
sion of Inanna’s Descent (l. 45);47 and the treatment of the people in Luhme,
which is inspired by a passage in the Cuthean Legend (l. 62).48 Moreover,
ll. 41 ff. in the third feat are inspired by Gilgameš Tablet IX (ll. 83‒87; 140‒165;
173‒75), which refers to Gilgameš’s journey through a tunnel of darkness until
he sees the light. The text also shares this vision with the Old Babylonian leg-
ends Sargon the Conquering Hero49 and Sargon in Foreign Lands,50 as well as
omen literature.51

43 Pongratz-Leisten 2011b, 114.

44 Dercksen 2005, 117.
45 Alster and Oshima 2007, 4.
46 Line 42, see Westenholz 1997, 69 ad lines 57‒64 and p.71 and 91, quoted by Dercksen 2005,
113.
47 Dercksen 2005, 113.
48 Dercksen 2005, 115 with reference to Westenholz 1997, 315.
49 Westenholz 1997, 59‒77.
50 Westenholz 1997, 78‒93.
51 Cavigneaux 2005, 599.
 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle Assyrian Period 157

The Old Assyrian Sargon Legend is an outstanding example of the trans-

mission and reception of cultural knowledge. The text is informed by what
Westenholz calls the ‘Akkad Saga,’52 i.e. the cultural tradition that evolved
around the Akkadian kings Sargon and Narām-Sîn beginning in the Akkad pe-
riod, and represents an improvisation on a variety of literary themes that must
have circulated in oral form. Its compositional style draws on the royal inscrip-
tions of the Akkad period and its subscript categorizes it as a praise of Sargon’s
achievements that is to be performed in the context of the mortuary cult. The
bulk of the text, on the other hand, is dedicated to episodes of Sargon’s life,
all starting with the refrain “I swear by Adad and Ištar” and combining histori-
cal deeds with motifs from fairy tales.53 These passages were easy to remember
and reflect an improvisational mode of reception, which is typical of oral tradi-
tion. The extensive intertextuality of the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend with texts
from the Sumero-Babylonian tradition, however, can only have been the prod-
uct of an educational and scholarly milieu like the one linked with the court
at Aššur, and classifies the text as a combination of orality and literacy, which
coexisted in Mesopotamian textual production.54

4.3 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat

in the Middle Assyrian Period
The end of the Old Assyrian period is poorly documented. Modern scholarship
faces a gap of more than three hundred years between the disintegration of
Šamšī-Adad I’s macro-regional kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia and Aššur-
uballiṭ I’s (1353‒1318 BCE) renewed expansion of the city state of Aššur. As
suggested by the work of Aline Tenu, it is possible that the Hittite-Hurrian
bilingual text mentioning a prince of Aššur by the name of Šu-Ninua55 consti-
tutes evidence of an alliance or link between Aššur and Nineveh around 1600
BCE, which now may be confirmed by the texts from Tigunānum.56 Be that as
it may, by the end of the sixteenth century Assyria had lost its independence
to Mitanni, becoming a vassal of this polity for the period between ca. 1550

52 Westenholz 1997, 22.

53 Alster and Oshima 2007, 6‒8 and Westenholz 2007b, 21‒22.
54 See also Westenholz 2007b.
55 Tenu 2005, 27 with reference to Neu 1996.
56 See my discussion in Chapter 2. 4
158 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

and 1390 BCE.57 Only following the assassination of Tušratta and the Hittite
invasion of Mitanni from the west in the fourteenth century BCE did Assyria
annex the lands comprising the eastern Tigridian area and the eastern Jazira –
a decisive expansion of Assyrian territory that was largely directed by Aššur-
uballiṭ I. As documented by the exchange of diplomatic letters with Babylon
and Hatti, it is under this king that the first signs of a growing self-confidence
as a territorial state become discernible. This king secured Assyrian control of
Nineveh and Arbail, as is expressed in his building inscription from Ištar’s
temple at Nineveh. In that inscription, Aššur-uballiṭ I calls himself “king of the
land (emphasis mine) of Aššur,” šar māt Aššur, with the term mātu now denot-
ing a unified political entity similar to kalam in earlier Sumerian usage and in
the inscriptions of Sargon, as well as in compositions from the Ur III and Old
Babylonian periods.58 This use of the term first occurs in an Assyrian context
in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend, now shifting from a literary to a political
context. Additionally, Aššur-uballiṭ I refers in his inscription to Šamšī-Adad I’s
previous work on Ištar’s temple. He thereby associates himself with Šamšī-
Adad I’s attempt to control the Aššur-Nineveh-Arbail triangle that constituted
the core territory of Assyria in later times.59 Aššur-uballiṭ I also demonstrates
a remarkable interest in promulgating the continuity of Assyrian kingship by
recording his genealogy to the sixth generation, thus formulating an ideologi-
cal vision that might have paved the way for the creation of the Assyrian King
List.60 The importance of this king to the expansion of Assyrian territory toward
the south is acknowledged by the author of the Synchronistic King List, which
records Aššur-uballiṭ I as the first king following the period of Mitannian con-
trol over Aššur.61 Indeed, it is with Aššur-uballiṭ I that the Synchronistic King
List begins its chronological account, in contrast to the previous section that
lists the names of Assyrian and Babylonian kings and then their skirmishes.
Subsequent to their conquest of new territories, the Assyrians were able to
secure the heartland of their country from the attacks of mountain people and,
later, from Aramean raids. Although the power of Aššur declined temporarily
after Aššur-uballiṭ I’s death, this trend was reversed in the following century

57 Lion 2011; see also the treaty between the Hittite King Suppiluliuma (1355‒1320 BCE) and
Šattiwaza, king of Mitanni, according to which the predecessor of the latter seized a door made
of silver and gold from Aššur and brought it to his capital.
58 Dercksen 2005, 113.
59 See, however, Postgate 2011, 8, who assumes that Nineveh together with Kilizi and Arbail
remained under Mitannian control until after the reign of Aššur-uballiṭ, as his successor Enlil-
nērārī had to confront his Babylonian counterpart in the region of Kilizi.
60 RIMA 1, A.0.73.1‒2.
61 Grayson, ABC, chronicle no. 21.
 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle Assyrian Period 159

under Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264 BCE). This king expanded Assyrian control to-
ward the region of Hanigalbat in the Hābūr triangle, which was the former core
of Mitanni and a contact zone between the Hittite empire and Assyria of great
strategic, political, and economic importance.62 Adad-nīrārī I’s political ambi-
tions are reflected in the revival of the epithet “king of totality” (kiššatu).63
Following his defeat of Wasašatta, the son of Šattuara, king of Mitanni, Adad-
nīrārī I annexed several formerly important Hurrian centers, among them Taʾi-
du, by then the royal residence of Mitanni,64 Kahat, seat of the storm god Adad,
and Waššukanni,65 the former royal residence; additionally, Adad-nīrārī I
launched several forays toward the region of Iridu, Sudu, Harran, and Car-
chemish.66 His interaction with the Hurrian milieu is reflected in the end of his
curse formula, which pairs Adad/Teššub with Ištar:
d
55 Iškur i-na ri-hi-iṣ le-mu-ti li-ir-hi-is-su a-bu-bu
56 im-hu-ul-lu sah-maš-tu te-šu-ú a-šàm-šu-tu su-qu
57 bu-bu-tu ar-ru-ur-tu hu-šá-hu i-na ma-ti-šu
58 lu ka-ia-an KUR-sú a-bu-bi-iš lu-uš-ba-i
59 a-na ti-li ù kar-me lu-te-er diš₈-tár be-el-ti
60 a-bi-ik-ti KUR-šu li-iš-ku-un

May the god Adad overwhelm him with a terrible flood. May deluge, hurricane, insurrec-
tion, confusion, storm, need, famine, hunger (and) want be established in his land. May
(Adad) cause (these things) to pass through his land like a flood and turn (it) into ruin
hills. May the goddess Ištar, my mistress, bring about the defeat of his land.67

In his commemoration of his restoration work on the temple of the Assyrian

Ištar, Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE) likewise features the pair of Adad and
Ištar in his curse formula,68 thus continuing a tradition which was attested in
the Assyrian Sargon Legend for the first time. This pairing persists into the
first millennium BCE with Šamaš-rēša-uṣur, “governor of Sūhu and Mari,” who
represents himself in the presence of the deities Adad and Ištar,69 and it contin-
ues in a different genre, namely the Neo-Assyrian penalty clauses in contracts
from Nimrud.70

62 Giorgieri 2011, 172.

63 RIMA 1, A.0.76.3:1.
64 Novak 2013; Faist 2006 with reference to Radner/Schachner 2001; Radner 2004, 113‒115
identifies Taʾidu with Üçtepe on the Upper Tigris, north of Kahat.
65 RIMA 1, A.0.76.1:8‒11.
66 RIMA 1, A.0.76.1:13.
67 RIMA 1, A.0.76.22:55‒60.
68 RIMA 1, A.0.11.6:22‒31.
69 Börker-Klähn 1982, no. 231.
70 For the texts see Schwemer 2001, 598‒99.
160 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Another interesting feature to be observed in the royal inscriptions of

Adad-nīrārī I is that this king uses the motif of sowing salty plants over the
ground of the vanquished city of Iridu to prevent any further growth,71 a motif
at that time only know from Hittite royal discourse.

I captured by conquest the city Taidu, his (Hurrian king Uasašatta, son of Šattuara) great
royal city, cities Amasaku, Kahat, Nabula, Hurra, Šuduhu, and Waššukanu. I took and
Brought to my city, Aššur, the possessions of these cities, the accumulated (wealth) of his
(Uasašatta’s) fathers, (and) the treasure of his palace I conquered, burnt, (and) destroyed
the city Iridu and sowed salty plants over it.72

Whether such action was actually performed or whether this is merely a liter-
ary motif is irrelevant. What is important is that the use of the motif reflects
Adad-nīrārī I’s awareness of the strategic importance of the city of Iridu, which
was located in the zone of Hittite influence and had been a site of conflict
between Hittites and Hurrians some fifty years earlier as described in the treaty
between Suppiluliuma I and Šattiwaza of Mitanni.73 It further demonstrates
Adad-nīrārī I’s knowledge of Hittite ideological discourse as this motif links his
discourse with the annals describing the conquest of Hattusili I in Northern
Syria. These have been transmitted in later copies probably dating from the
time of Hattusili III, who was likely a contemporary of Adad-nīrārī I.74 This
ritual or motif, however, occurs for the first time in the Anitta Text describing
the conquest of central Anatolia,75 where it is used to describe the destruction
of Hattusa, which is to become the capital of the Hittite empire. This text inter-
estingly uses the Sumerogram za₃.ah.li = Akkadian sahlu thus suggesting a
Babylonian origin of the motif. Adad-nīrārī I’s deliberate choice of this motif
then reflects his claim that with the conquest of Iridu the Hittite and Assyrian
states now shared a common border.76 The motif occurs further in the inscrip-
tions of Adad-nīrārī I’s son and successor Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE) in his
account of the city Arinu,77 to be revived only by Ashurbanipal (668‒631/27
BCE) in his account dealing with the destruction of Elam.78

71 See already my discussion of this passage in Pongratz-Leisten 2011b, 113.

72 RIMA I, A.0.73.3: 26‒36.
73 Beckman 1996, 42. 6A § 12.
74 Haas 2006.
75 Carruba 2003, 37 §XIb 48.
76 Klengel 1999, 164‒165.
77 RIMA 1, A.0.77.1:46‒51.
78 Borger 1996, 168 Prisma T V 7‒8. This ritual occurs further in the curse formula of the
Aramaic treaty of Bar-Ga’yah of Ktk with King Matiʾel of Arpad, see Fitzmyer 1967, 15 Curse
Section IV.
 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle Assyrian Period 161

Assyrian expansion to the west was primarily a survival strategy.79 While

Aššur’s local agricultural production was sufficient to meet the needs of the
city during the Old Assyrian period, Aššur’s location near the dry-farming belt
and its small agricultural hinterland proved to be insufficient to meet its needs
once the city became the capital of an expansionist territorial polity. As a re-
sult, the area to the north and to the west of the Assyrian heartland, which
was in the dry-farming zone and a rich source of metal ores, was of major
interest to the Assyrians from the Middle Assyrian period onward. Expansionist
ambitions and material needs thus help to account for the incorporation of the
west into Assyria. A further impetus for this expansion was the trade in luxury
goods, observable already prior to the Middle Assyrian period.80
In an ongoing effort to dismantle the power structure of Mitanni, which
had built alliances with the Hittites and the Ahlamu nomads, Adad-nīrārī I’s
son and successor Shalmaneser I established administrative districts in the
Hābūr triangle.81 The surviving elites of the former Mitannian state do not ap-
pear to have submitted easily to Assyrian overlordship, organizing their resist-
ance in the mountainous area of the Ṭur-ʿAbdin. As a result, Shalmaneser I’s
son and successor Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE) felt compelled to secure
the northern frontier and safeguard passage along the piedmont route from
Aššur toward the Balīh river prior to continuing Assyria’s westward advance
(Map 2).82 After his establishment of administrative districts in the Hābūr trian-
gle, Shalmaneser I pursued an expansionist policy in the Jazira and finally
conquered Hanigalbat, which was placed under the control of his brother Ibaš-
ši-ilī, who bore the titles ‘grand vizier’ (sukallu rabiʾu) and ‘king of the land of
Hanigalbat’ (šar māt Hanigalbat); Ibašši-ilī’s successors all descended from his
line.83 The sukkallu rabiʾu resided in Tall Sheikh Ḥamad/ancient Dūr Katlim-
mu, which from that point onward served as the region’s provincial capital.84

79 Kühne 2000; for the expansion under Tukultī-Ninurta I see Yamada 2011.
80 Faist 2001, 128‒138.
81 The cities of Amasakku, Taʾidu, and Nahur were seats of district governors (bēl pāhete),
see also Jakob 2003, 9. Archaeological and textual records reveal an Assyrian presence in Tall
ʿAmuda/Kulišhinaš and Tall Fekherīya in the north.
82 Jakob 2003, 9 with reference to RIMA 1, A.0.77.1:56‒72; see also the remarks by Cancik-
Kirschbaum 1996, 38; Fales 2012. 112.
83 Fales 2012, 112‒114.
84 The surviving correspondence between the governor of Dūr Katlimmu and the king of As-
syria proves that this region was under the tight control of Aššur at this time, governed by a
firmly established administration, supported by a communication system consisting of a canal
and a steppe route with regular road stations, Tall Umm ʿAqrēbe being one of the most impor-
tant of these, see Kühne 1995, 72 and 2011, 103; Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996.
162 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

38° 39° 40° 42° to the upper 41° 43° 44° 45°
Tigris
T
M I
T IUA Kaijari
MT
Nablu?
AT [r ‘Abd n]
Sub
Sultantepe / T. Amda nat
37° uzrnu ?
ANIGALBAT
arblus /
Su Alt inbaak /
MT T. Rumln / Tille? 37°


Kargamis T. Muhammad Diab

 a
riu tiu arrnu T. Faarya /
ub
T. Amar /

a
Aukanni ? T. Hamd
Kumu ? T. uwra / T. Brk
T. Saln / arbe T. Barri
T. Muhammad Arab
Salala T. abAbya
T. ammm at- Turkm n T. asaka T. Rad aqra
T. Hadd irbat aanaf T. AbMriy/ T. Bill
T. Bdri
Apqu
T. Aaa / T. bn al-Mouil /
T. al-H

Ba
adikanni T. ar-Rim Ninua
Sutiu
l

36° T. Maskana /
Imar T. addda Nimrd /
T. Ba / Kalu 36°
T. Fadm
Tuttul T. Aamsn
T. Malat ed-Deru
T. Umm Aqrbe
Hatra
T. amad /
irbat Dibya

r
T. Akrah


 b
Dr- Katlimmu
Qalat airqa / Tull al-Aqar /
Aur Kr-Tukult-Ninurta

35°
aq /
Tall al- Aara / Lubdi 35°
Terqa

Wd a-arr
Main routes in the Middle Assyrian Period.
Map carried out by the Tell  amad Project, with kind T. Hariri
permission of Prof. Hartmut Kühne, and based on T. Diniya Zawiya

Idiqla
Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996: 34.

t
Pura
Legend

ttu
34°
T. Maskana / Imar place (modern / ancient)

RDUNIA 
MT IUA country
Sutiu people Ht MT KA
Purattu [Euphrat] river [modern name] Kaiu

[Tig
Kaijari [r ‘Abd n] mountain [modern name]

ris]
[Eu
0 100 km phra
t]
road
N
33°

41° 42° 43° 44° 45°

Map. 2: Assyrian expansion (after Faist 2006, 149).

Further, the sukkallu rabiʾu assumed a status comparable to that of a viceroy,

“overseeing rural areas and their output, supervising workers, supplying the
Assyrian capital with tax-revenues, acting as legal authority, hosting officials
during their travels, and even taking on specific policing and military du-
ties.”85 His authority stretched over four districts headed by the bēl pāhete,
who were in turn assisted by minor local officials (qēpu). In addition to Tall
Sheikh Ḥamad, these bēl pāhete resided in Tall Fadǧami (Qatni), Tall ʿAǧaǧa
(Šadikanni), and Tall Ṭabān (Ṭābētu),86 all located along the Hābūr River. New-
ly founded road stations such as Tall Umm ʿAgrēbe87 along the new route con-
necting Tall Sheikh Ḥamad with Aššur are an indicator of the Assyrian attempt
to both control and colonize the steppe.
The degree of Assyrian political control prior to Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234
BCE) over the various local polities along the Hābūr river might have varied
slightly, but overall, with the growing pressure exercised by the Ahlamû no-

85 Fales 2012, 113.

86 Kühne in press. For the texts from Ṭabētu see Maul 1992.
87 Pfälzner 1994.
 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle Assyrian Period 163

mads marauding in the area,88 these polities must have had an interest in
maintaining a good relationships with their powerful Assyrian neighbor. Such
a policy is discernible in the local kingdom of Ṭābētu / modern Tall Ṭābān
which together with its satellite city Dūr Aššur-ketta-lēšir / modern Tell Bdēri
located just to its north on the Hābūr river yielded rich archaeological and
textual information. The history of Ṭābētu goes back to the Old Babylonian
period, when it operated as a local center under the district governor of Qaṭṭun-
an during the time of Zimrilim, an internal political organization, that was con-
tinued by the kings of Terqa.89 Its status as a local center is reflected in the
textual record, including letters, administrative, legal texts, and scribal exer-
cises,90 among them a land grant especially notable for its oath formula, which
mentions Dagan (of Terqa) and Addu of Mahānum, a cultic center of the Bed-
ouins in the western part of the Upper Jazira not far from Ṭābētu, representing
the sedentary and pastoralist populations respectively.91 The particular choice
of the divinities as represented in the texts as well as the local calendar, which
was practically identical with the one of Mari and also later with the one of
Terqa,92 anchors Old Babylonian Ṭābatum in the Syro-Babylonian tradition.
Ṭābatum subsequently must have come under Hurrian control as indicated
by a brick inscription recently found in three exemplars written by a local ruler
named Adad-bēl-gabbe who traces his lineage back to an individual bearing a
Hurrian name: King Adad-bēl-gabbe, son of Zumiya, king of the Land of Mār[i],
son of Akit-Teššub, [also] ki[ng of the Land of Māri].”93 The rest of the Middle
Assyrian inscriptions from Ṭābētu are divisible into two groups, the first group
comprising 12th to early 11th century building inscriptions of the local rulers of
Ṭābētu, who called themselves ‘king of Mari’ (šar māt Māri),94 and the second
belonging to the royal administrative archive and dating from the middle of
the 13th century BCE to the first part of the 12th century BCE.95 By the time of
Ninurta-tukultī-Aššur around 1133 Ṭābētu must have reclaimed a semi-inde-

88 Kühne 2009, 46.

89 Yamada 2008, pp. 164 and 2010.
90 Yamada 2008.
91 Yamada 2008, 160.
92 Yamada 2008, 164.
93 Shibata 2011.
94 Maul 1992, 48 f. and 2005, 18 f.; Shibata and Yamada 2009; and now the fragment pub-
lished by Shibata 2011.
95 Yamada 2008, 153; for the publication of these tablets see Shibata 2007, who on the basis
of the Eponyms dates the texts to the period between Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE) and Nin-
urta-apil-Ekur (1181‒1169 BCE).
164 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

pendent status as suggested by nāmurtu documents, recording gifts of the local

ruler to the Assyrian king. Such evidence suggests that at that time the ruler
had the status of a vassal rather than a governor in the direct service of the
Assyrian king.96 From this first Adad-bēl-gabbe onward all subsequent rulers
had Assyrian names, displaying the effort exercised by this formerly Hurrian
dynasty by adopting Assyrian names also to appropriate an Assyrian lifestyle.97
Ṭābētu’s former Hurrian component explains Ṭābētu’s strong familiarity
with Babylonian tradition, as close interaction between these two cultures had
occurred since the third millennium BCE in Mesopotamia as well as in Northern
Syria. Due to the strong presence of the Hurrians in the Hābūr valley, the storm
god Adad, local patron deity of Ṭābētu, must have appropriated traits of the
Hurrian storm god Teššub. His temple was restored by Adad-bēl-gabbe III (end
of the 12th cent. BCE).98 Another temple was dedicated to the goddess Gula and
had the same name as that known from Babylonian tradition, é.gal.mah.99
Further to the west, Middle Assyrian garrisons were established east of the
Balīh River. These fortifications represented “fortified agricultural production
centers,”100 which were granted by the Crown “as an autonomous farming es-
tate in its well-defined boundaries and rights. The MA dunnu controlled vast
tracts of farmland all around a fortified ‘industrial’ area; it was not open to
secondary subdivisions or privatization (.i.e., all the personnel was of depend-
ent status vis-à-vis the owner), and – in the main – belonged to a single indi-
vidual, at times even of high rank, residing elsewhere and specifically in a city
(provincial capital or other).”101 Such centers with their landholdings appear
to have originated from the earlier structure of the dimtu attested in the Nuzi
texts102 and continued an administrative tradition that had been established
under Mitannian control. This explains once again why the Assyrians were
able to control the Western territories with such speed and effectiveness.

96 Shibata 2007, 63.

97 Liverani 1988, 89. Formerly Maul 2005, 15 with reference to Freydank 1991 still ignorant of
this recent find had suggested that Adad-bēl-gabbe (now Adad-bēl-gabbe II) might have been
a member of the royal family in Assur similar to the vizier or governor, who in Middle Assyrian
times, were members of the royal family, see Cancik-Kirschbaum 1999; see also Jacob 2003,
59‒65.
98 Maul 2005, no. 3.
99 Maul 2005, no. 2.
100 Wiggermann 2000, 172‒174; Fales 2012, 101‒103.
101 Fales 2012. 101 f. with reference to Wiggermann 2000 172‒174 and Radner 2004, 70
102 Zaccagnini 1979. Note that in earlier times these were also single-real-estate owners.
 Building an Empire: The Role of Hanigalbat in the Middle Assyrian Period 165

The steppe garrisons Tell Ṣābi Abyad (Amīmu?),103 Tell Hammam at-Turk-
man,104 and Hirbat aš-Šanaf demonstrate a deliberate Assyrian attempt to con-
trol and colonize the regions between the rivers. In the later part of his reign,
Tukultī-Ninurta I managed to bring this region of the Middle Euphrates be-
tween the Balīh River and the Hābūr River fully under his control.105 After Shal-
maneser III’s conquests in 856 BCE, the region became part of the province of
the “commander in chief” (turtānu), which at that time extended to the Eu-
phrates with Til Barsip as the provincial capital.106
The efforts of the kings Adad-nīrārī I, Shalmaneser I, and Tukultī-Ninurta
I to establish a larger Assyrian kingdom can be considered the first phase of
Assyrian expansion.107 Tukultī-Ninurta I’s sack and pillage of Babylon consti-
tuted a dramatic moment in Assyria’s disturbance of the balance of power,
which was divided between the kings of Hatti, Egypt, Babylonia, and formerly
Mitanni. At least in terms of the ideological claims that were now expressed in
Tukultī-Ninurta I’s titulary, Assyria’s defeat of Babylonia prompted a move to-
ward the assertion of hegemonic control in the ancient Near East:

Tukultī-Ninurta, king of the universe (šar kiššati), king of Assyria, king of the four quar-
ters (šar kibrāt arbāʾi), sun of all people, strong king, king of Karduniaš, king of Sumer
and Akkad, king of the Upper (and) Lower Seas, king of the extensive mountains and
plains, king of the land of Šubaru, Qutu, and king of all the lands Mairi, the king whom
the gods have helped to obtain his desired victories and who shepherds the four quarters
with his fierce might I, son of Shalmaneser (I), king of the universe, king of Assyria, son
of Adad-nīrārī (I) (who was) also king of the universe (and) king of Assyria.108

The defeat of the Babylonian king Kaštiliaš IV is commemorated in a stone

inscription recording Tukultī-Ninurta I’s renovation of his palace in Aššur, the
name of which was “Palace of the King, Lord of the Lands.”109 This title reflects
the king’s claim of universal control and his appropriation of the Sumero-Baby-

103 Jas 1990; Tenu 2009, 142. The texts will be published by F. A. M. Wiggermann. For the
tentative identification with Amīmu see 1999‒2001, 97. Tell Ṣābi Abiyad was not an administra-
tive center, but the property of Ilī-pada, sukkallu rabiʾu “great vizier” probably granted to him
by the Crown, see Faist 2006, 151 fn. 19.
104 Van Loon 1988; de Meijer in press; van Soldt 1995.
105 This is confirmed by the mention of a district governor of the city of Tuttul by the name
of Aššur-šuma-ēriš in an administrative document from Tall Ṣābi Abyad, see Jakob 2003, 9
fn. 71 with reference to communication from Wiggermann.
106 Radner 2006, 48, § 3.2.
107 Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012, 21.
108 RIMA 1, A.0.78.5‒14.
109 RIMA 1, A.0.78.5:79.
166 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

lonian theology of divine sovereignty (Illilūtu) and supremacy, which was asso-
ciated with the supreme god Enlil and was now, following the Assyrian king’s
conquest of Babylonia, appropriated by Assyrian ideology. Tukultī-Ninurta I’s
victory is further celebrated in a literary poem that is known as the Tukultī-
Ninurta Epic.110 Assyria’s spectacular expansion during the Middle Assyrian
period came to an end with the murder of Tukultī-Ninurta I and was followed
by a period of decline between 1200 and 900 BCE, barring a minor revival
under Tiglath-Pileser I (1114‒1076 BCE).
Along with these first attempts at building an Assyrian macro-regional
state, it is possible to observe a dramatic increase in the power of the Assyrian
king: “The City Assembly disappeared and was replaced by royal officials,
whose position depended in the first place on their personal relation to the
king.”111 This organization of power is apparent in the Assyrian Coronation Rit-
ual, in which the officials have to symbolically resign their offices by placing
their official insignia at the feet of the king, who confirms their position with
the words: ‘each one shall hold his office.’112 The most important measure tak-
en by the Assyrians to properly administer their vast and ever growing territory
was the implementation of a provincial system with provincial capitals placed
under the control of the high officials, which was the foundation for the later
development of the empire. The custom of entrusting state affairs to members
of the royal family is well documented in the Middle Assyrian letters found at
the provincial capital of Tall Sheikh Ḥamad/Dūr-Katlimmu, which served as
the residence of the grand vizier (sukallu rabiʾu) under Shalmaneser I and Tu-
kultī-Ninurta I.113 In addition to kingship itself, the office of eponym and the
post of grand vizier were both handed down within the ruling royal family.114
During the three hundred years between Tukultī-Ninurta I and Aššurnaṣir-
pal II, the political geography of the Syro-Anatolian region changed markedly.
The Hittite empire incorporated Kizzuwatna (Cilicia and the Taurus) into its
territory and established secundo-genitures in Aleppo and Carchemish before
collapsing; consequently, the geographical term Hatti migrated from the Ana-
tolian plateau to northern Syria.115 Only Carchemish maintained its political
position to some degree and preserved the structures of Hittite political organi-
zation. During the 12th century BCE Assyria experienced a shrinking of its terri-

110 Machinist 1978a; Foster 2005, 298‒317.

111 Faist 2005, 17.
112 Müller 1937, 14 iii 1‒14.
113 Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996. For further examples in other periods of Mesopotamian history
see Edzard and Röllig 2006.
114 See Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996, 22 pl. 5.
115 Hawkins 1974, 68.
 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet 167

tory and only regained its strength under Tiglath-Pileser I, who conducted mili-
tary campaigns to Lebanon and the Mediterranean Coast. Tiglath-Pileser I’s
inscriptions reveal that by the 11th century BCE the Assyrians regarded Car-
chemish as Hatti’s political center and applied the title “king of Hatti” only to
kings of that city.116 It is during the period between Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-
Pileser I that due to direct political encounters it is possible to posit also major
cultural interaction between Hittites and Assyrians.117 Beyond other cultural
practices such as the Hittite legal tradition of subordination and parity treat-
ies,118 this might have led to the adaptation of the annalistic style in the Assyri-
an royal inscriptions under Tiglath-Pileser I already attested under Hattusili I
in the Hittite sphere.
Throughout this long period of expansion towards the west and towards
the south with Tukultī-Ninurta I incorporating Babylon for a short time into
Assyrian territory, the city of Aššur remained the political and cultural center
of Assyria. While it seems that Nimrud gained in importance already under
Shalmaneser I,119 it is only under Tukultī-Ninurta I that we see the foundation
of a new residence as a major agrarian center on the other side of the Tigris to
exploit the Eastern region. The existence of the new capital Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta
was, however, short-lived, and after Tukultī-Ninurta I’s death, the center shift-
ed back to Assur. Only during the first millennium BCE did the imperial center
move to Nimrud, Dūr Šarru-kēn, and Nineveh. Such transfers of the administra-
tive and political centers allowed the various kings to turn the respective resi-
dence into a reflection of their personal conception of Assyrian ideology and
to immortalize their names by means of monumental building programs.120 The
city of Aššur, however, once it was established as the seat of the Assyrian dy-
nasty (šubat palēya) and the seat of Assyrian kingship (šubat šarrūtīya) under
Aššur-uballiṭ I, remained the cultic and cultural metropolis; here the kings
were crowned in the temple of the god Aššur, and many of them were buried
in the Old Palace.

4.4 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet

Following a protracted period of crisis between the end of the 11th century and
the second half of the 10th century there followed a period of revival between

116 Hawkins 1974, 70.

117 Klengel 1999, 268‒273; d’Alfonso 2006, 303‒307; see further Chapters 6.4 and 10.5.
118 D’Alfonso 2006, 328.
119 Postgate and Reade 1976‒1980, 320.
120 Cancik-Kirschbaum 2011‒12, 72.
168 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

900 and 745 BCE, in which the Assyrian kings reestablished the borders of the
13th century BCE. Even this period was not without turmoil. In 827 Shalmaneser
III (858‒824 BCE) and his crown prince Šamšī-Adad V had to deal with a major
revolt led by the Assyrian prince Aššur-daʾʾin-apla who had allied with 27 As-
syrian cities.121 It seems that Šamšī-Adad V (823‒810 BCE) ultimately defeated
the rebels with the help of the Babylonian king Marduk-zākir-šumi. Šamšī-
Adad V never refers again to these defeated cities again and describes cam-
paigns that led beyond them.122 Control over them was not complete though,
as his successor Adad-nīrārī III (809‒783 BCE) is still striving to consolidate
the frontiers and central Assyria. It has been suggested that the reform of the
provincial system occurred already under Shalmaneser III. In light of the evi-
dence, Luis Robert Siddall, however, argues that it might have begun under
Šamšī-Adad V and continued into the reign of Adad-nīrārī III. The provincial
system, as created by then, became the backbone of the Assyrian empire and
the basis of its stability.123 In this system the provinces delivered regular provi-
sions to the Aššur temple124 and to the palace; deliveries to the former were
effectively an “extension of customs which went ultimately back to a system
of commonly ruling family groups of the Old Assyrian phase.”125
The administrative organization of the Middle Assyrian period appears to
have been directed primarily by two viziers, one responsible for the recently
conquered regions in the west and the other responsible for the management
of Assyria’s heartland, including Aššur, Nineveh, and Arbail.126 In the Neo-
Assyrian period, a number of other powerful dignitaries became prominent in
the administration of the empire. As the biggest consumer of resources and a
center for manufacturing, the palace was now administered by the steward
(mašennu). Other dignitaries entrusted with administrative duties were the
“commander in chief,” (turtānu),127 who was the head of the Assyrian army
and controlled the provincial governors, and the “cupbearer” (rab šaqê) and
“palace herald” (nāgir ekalli), who could also act as military commanders. Two
high dignitaries are only attested during the Neo-Assyrian period, namely the
“chief eunuch” (rab ša rēši)128 and the “chief judge” (sartinnu), pointing to

121 RIMA 3, A.0.103.1: i 39‒44.

122 Siddal 2013, 85.
123 Beaulieu 2005, 49; Postgate 1995, 3 ff. suggests Adad-nīrārī III as the transforming force
behind the provincial system.
124 Postgate 2002, 2.
125 Fales in press.
126 For the magnates of the king during the Neo-Assyrian period see Mattila 2000.
127 Dalley 2000.
128 Deller 1999; Tadmor 2002; Siddall 2007.
 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet 169

increasing administrative specialization and growing differentiation in the or-

ganization of power. The hierarchical relationship between these dignitaries is
not exactly clear,129 but it must be stressed that these various titles rather con-
ceal than reveal the multiplicity of functions that came with these offices. In
any case, this group, which has been labeled “the Assyrian Cabinet,”130 was
followed by the provincial governors, who were headed by the governor of
the province of Raṣappa. From the Middle Assyrian period onward, the Crown
appears to have exercised additional control in the provinces through commis-
sioners of the Crown (qēpu) in the Middle Assyrian period and “military gover-
nors” (rab muggi) or “confidants of the king” (ša qurbūti) during the Neo-Assyr-
ian period. This dual system of provincial officials and crown officials was
probably intended to maintain control over the provincial magnates.131
The severe crisis toward the end of the ninth century BCE “is usually inter-
preted as a reaction of the old nobility against the expansion of the provincial
system which put forward a new class of royal favorites. And indeed, after the
suppression of the rebellion, the influence of this new nobility of high officials
increased dramatically, especially the influence of the commander-in-chief of
the army whose power often overshadowed the authority of the king. … The
extent of actual royal authority was at times quite limited, while some provin-
cial governors acted as nearly independent monarchs.”132 While Shalmanes-
er III’s two sons competed for the throne during the seven-year internal crisis
that followed their father’s death, for instance, the chief eunuch (rab ša reši)
became very powerful. As described above, the younger son Šamšī-Adad V
(823‒810 BCE) finally prevailed, and in his inscription found at Nimrud he
credits his chief eunuch with his second campaign against Nairi133 and assigns
epithets to him that are normally reserved for the king, such as “wise” (eršu),
“experienced in battle” (mudê tuqumta) and “man of authority” (awīl ṭēmi).
Twenty years later in 798 BCE, Mutakkil-Marduk, chief eunuch under Adad-
nīrārī III (809‒783 BCE), was awarded the special honor of serving as eponym
alongside other ministers of the king,134 a position not occupied again by a
chief eunuch until the very last period of Assyrian history. The power exercised
by certain eunuchs is reflected in Adad-nīrārī III’s stele from Sabaʾa, which not
only contains a dedicatory inscription (lines 1‒22), but also introduces Nergal-

129 Matilla 2000, 161‒168.

130 Parpola 1995.
131 Kühne in press.
132 Beaulieu 2005, 51.
133 RIMA 3, A.0.103.1: ii 16b‒34a, see also Tadmor 2002, 607 f.
134 Millard 1994.
170 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

ēreš, governor of the provinces of Raṣappa, Laqê, and Suhi, along with his
titles (lines 23‒25). Nergal-ēreš is then recorded in the first person (lines 26‒33)
in the curse formula.135 The same pattern can be observed in the king’s stele
from Tell Rimah, except for that in this inscription the section dealing with
Nergal-ereš has been deliberately erased, indicating that he had fallen from
favor. Under Adad-nīrārī III, strong personalities like the commander-in-chief
Šamšī-ilu136 and other officials wrote their own inscriptions to commemorate
their deeds, “just like an Assyrian monarch.”137 The military importance of the
chief eunuch is evident in the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (744‒727 BCE), and
the steady rise in power of both this official and the commander-in-chief (turtā-
nu) under Sargon II testifies to changes within the palace hierarchy.138
In their annals the Assyrian kings seldom give credit to these social groups,
and King Adad-nīrārī III may be considered an exception. Perhaps not coinci-
dentally, it is also during the reign of this king that a queen mother, the famous
Semiramis, who in the beginning of his reign due to his youth acted as some
kind of regent, had her own stele.139 Modern historiography generally inter-
prets this multiplicity of inscriptions as a sign of the weakness of the political
center.
Stephanie Dalley,140 and in her vein, Luis Robert Siddall, by contrast, have
argued that the position of these strong men can be compared to the authority
and power exercised by the sukkallu rabû as šar māt Hanigalbat during the
Middle Assyrian period. In his detailed study of these four strong men Siddall
points to the consistent use of highest officials in the control of northern Syria
to secure economic and commercial gains. He argues “that the magnates were
a part of the imperial expansion, and their prominence in the royal inscriptions
was a result of their increased responsibility because of the political climate in
which they operated. The political climate was problematic for two reasons:
first, the 827‒821 revolt had greatly reduced Assyria’s territorial holdings; and
the second was that Adad-nīrārī III was a youth when he came to the throne
… In this way Sammuramāt and the magnates were key figures in the mainte-
nance of the empire.”141

135 RIMA 3, A.0.104.6.

136 Fuchs 2008.
137 For the list of the officials and their inscriptions see Grayson RIMA 3, 200 ff.
138 Tadmor 2002, 608.
139 RIMA 3, A.0.104.2001. Whether all of this must be considered an indication of the strength
or the weakness of that king remains open to debate, see Siddall 2013.
140 Dalley 2000.
141 Siddall 2013, 129.
 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet 171

In contrast to the tenor of the royal inscriptions, in which political and

military agency is monopolized by the king, land grants and tax exemptions
are clear evidence of the king’s acknowledgement and reward of faithful ser-
vice. Such grants are already attested under Adad-nīrārī III.142 They show that
land and people were at the disposal of the king who used these resources
“from estates throughout Assyria for state projects and temple mainte-
nance.”143 Land grants continue into the period of Ashubanipal as demonstrat-
ed by the following example:

[I, Ashurbanipal, great king, mighty king, king of the world, king of Assyria], k[ing of the
four quarters, true shepherd, who does goo]d, k[ing of righteousness (mīšari), lover of
justice (rāʾʾim ketti), who makes] his [people content, who always behaves kind]ly [to-
wards the officials who serve] him [and rewards] the reverent [who obey] his [royal com-
mand] –
[NN], eu[nuc]h [of Ashurbani]pal, king of Assyria, [one who has deserved kindness] and
favor, [who, from the ‘succession’] to the exercise of kingship [was] devoted [to the king]
his lord, who served [before me] in faithfulness, [and walked] in sa[fety], who gr[ew wi]th
a good repute [within my palace], and kept guard over [my] kingship,
[at the prompting] of my own heart, and according to [my own] counsel [I plan]ned to do
[him good], and decreed a gi[ft for him. The field, or]chards and pe[ople which] he had
acquired [under] my [prote]ction [and made his] own estate, [I exemp]ted (from taxes),
wr[ote down] and s[ealed] [with] my royal [sea]l; I gave (them) to [NN, eunuch, who rever-
ences] my kingship.
[The corn taxes of those fields and o]rchards [shall] not [be collected, the straw taxes
shall] not [be gathered ……]
(Break)
[When NN, eunuch], g[oes to his fate in my palace with a good repute, they shall bury
him] where he dictates, and he shall lie where [it was his wish]
(Break)
[A future prince shall not cast asid]e [the wording of this tablet. Aššur, Adad, Ber, the
Assyrian Enlil and the Assyria]n [Ištar will hear your prayer].
(Rest destroyed)144

While the historical introduction of Ashurbanipal’s land grant might sound

formulaic to the reader, Aššur-etel-ilāni’s tax exemption for his chief eunuch
is evidence that the king could and did reward actual loyalty. In Aššur-etel-
ilāni’s case, it is loyalty during the period of the king’s “apprenticeship” as
crown prince, active support for his ascension to the throne, and devoted ser-
vice during his rulership that are being rewarded:

142 SAA 12, nos. 1‒13.

143 Siddall 2013, 180.
144 SAA 12 no. 29.
172 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

[Af]ter my father and begetter had depa]rted, [no father brought me up or taught me to
spr]ead my wing]s, no m]other cared for me or saw to my educa[tion],
Sîn-š[umu-lēšir], the chief eunuch, one who had deserved well of [my] father and beget-
ter, who had led me [constantly], like a father, installed [me] safely on the throne of my
father and begetter and made the people of Assyria, great and small […… keep watch over
m]y kingship during my minority, and respected […… my royalty],
Afterwards, Nabû-rēhtu-[uṣur, a …… who had made] rev[olt and rebellion ……] assem[bled
the people of] the city [and the land of Assyria …… treaty oath ……] to Sî[n-šarru-ibni, my
eunuch, ……] whom I had instal[led …… the prefect of the city of Kar-……] with them [……
they were] alone in their (hostile) talk [……] battle and war [……]
At the command of Bēl and Nabû, [great] god[s my] lords, [I …..]. Sîn-šumu-lēšir, my chief-
eunuch, and the [battle troops of his own estate ….] who had stood with him, people [……]
I clothed them with col[ored clothing, and bound their wrists with] rings of [gold ……]
Break
….145

Moreover, as Hartmut Kühne observes there are indications of an intense in-

vestment policy whose purpose it was to develop settlement systems in the
Jazira, headed by already existing ‘centers.’ Because these towns had to accom-
modate a growing administration that included both provincial functionaries
and crown officials – the sukallu rabiʾu during the Middle Assyrian period and
the ‘confidant of the king’ (ša qurbūti) and ‘commissioner’ (qēpu) during the
Neo-Assyrian period – such measures prompted a level of urbanization that
was unprecedented.146
An important step in the remodeling of the Assyrian provincial system was
“splitting the very large provinces, thereby preventing leading high officials
from becoming too powerful, and second by expanding the system for the first
time west of the Euphrates, where a large number of provinces were created in
the wake of the campaign against the small kingdoms of Syria and the Le-
vant.”147 In addition, the land holdings entrusted to officials were now made
up of “many different and separate plots, located in more than one area or
even province”148 in order to avoid the accretion of too much power in the
hands of any single official. While it was possible to inherit an official position,
such inheritance depended on the loyalty of the officeholder to the king. Offi-
cials were endowed with a “variety of functions and privileges so as to make
them operative extensions of the patrimonial power of the king. Their power
was exercised in the judiciary sphere, in military conduction, in the coordina-

145 SAA 12 no. 35.

146 See Kühne in press, section 5. 2.
147 Beaulieu 2005, 52; for the provinces see Radner 2006.
148 Fales in press.
 The Neo-Assyrian Empire: The King and His Cabinet 173

Map. 3: Late Assyrian Empire.

174 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

tion of the civilian sector and public works, and in the management of a prov-
ince which went by their name. They participated in the divisions of spoils of
war, had a fixed cyclical position in the choice of year eponyms immediately
following the King, and enjoyed endowment of land and people. As a body,
they sat in council with the King, of whom they represented the true executive
‘arm’ in war and peace.”149
Together with the magnates of the king who formed the royal cabinet, the
governors were counted among the “great ones” (rabûte) of Assyria. They were,
however, lower down the political hierarchy than the magnates.150 The provin-
ces were bound to the imperial administration based in the imperial capital –
Nimrud, Nineveh, or Khorsabad, depending on the time – and organized in a
communication grid that was based on a network of forts and supply centers.
This system paved the way for increased royal interventionism. Under Tiglath-
Pileser III Assyria embarked on its fourth and final period of expansion
(Map 3), beginning with the conquest of most of Syria and Lebanon and con-
cluding with the annexation of Egypt and Elam under Esarhaddon (680‒669
BCE) and Ashurbanipal (668‒631/27?).151

4.5 The Literarization of the Empire

Political developments deeply affected the metaphorical language used in the
discourse of royal ideology. One important feature introduced by Aššur-uballiṭ I
(1353‒1318 BCE) was the use of the term mātu ‘land’ to designate a political
entity that had been incorporated into the Assyrian provincial system, where
previously the term had been used to describe external polities bound to Assyr-
ia by means of treaties and other agreements. Peter Machinist 152 has outlined
the various administrative strategies employed by the Assyrians to integrate
conquered regions into their empire. First, the conquered people were counted
for/with (manû ana/itti) the people of Assyria, while the conquered state was
turned into a province of Assyria (turru ana) or added to (ruddu eli) the border
of Assyria. Second, the captured lands were reorganized by appointing Assyri-
an officials as their governors (šaknu/bēl pīhāti), while taxes and service in the
form of corvée labor were imposed on them. Reorganization could imply the
deportation of people, destruction, rebuilding, and even giving provincial capi-

149 Fales in press.

150 Mattila 2000.
151 Faist 2005, 15.
152 Machinist 1993.k
 The Literarization of the Empire 175

tals new Assyrian names.153 If a conquered polity was subjected to Assyria but
not integrated into its provincial system, it was obliged to enter into a vassal
treaty and to send annual tribute to the Assyrian king. Membership in the em-
pire was consequently based either on being an Assyrian or, in the case of a
distinct conquered population, being a “son of Assyria.” As such, the terms
“Assyria” and “Assyrian” in the royal inscriptions point less to an ethnic under-
standing than to a political meaning, “defining a region and people that mani-
fest the required obedience.”154 The cultural objective of these strategies was
to eliminate differences through a process of administrative homogenization
and the standardization of cultural modes of expressions like architecture and
iconography.
With Adad-nīrārī I’s forays into northern Syria and the conquest of the
Middle Euphrates region, i.e. the former state of Mitanni, we again encounter
the title ‘king of totality’ (šar kiššati), reiterating the ancient notion of the sub-
jection of formerly foreign polities to the king. Assyrian metaphorical language
reflects a degree of continuity in its use of the term ‘land’ (mātu) to designate
what the Assyrians considered their cultural homeland. Yet in their attempt to
incorporate more and more regions into what they called māt Aššur, they de-
veloped a new understanding of the term mātu that was primarily political
rather than cultural.
The word ‘king,’ šarru, only came to be written primarily with the sign
man, which can also be read as ‘twenty’ or as representing the sun god, at the
time of Adad-nīrārī I’s expansion to the west into the region of the Balīh river
and the Jazira. Interestingly, this writing parallels the use of the winged disk
as a visual signifier for ‘king’ in Hittite culture, signifying universal royal pres-
ence. It also attests to the continuity of direct cultural interaction between the
Syro-Anatolian and Assyrian scholarly horizons, as well as to the scholars’
search for new symbols with which to express the royal claim to universal
control.155 As discussed in the Chapter Three, the royal claim to universal con-
trol is also known from the Akkad dynasty through to the Old Babylonian peri-
od, though its transmission and development at that time is more difficult to
trace.
Tukultī-Ninurta I, who brought Babylonia under his control, reintroduced
the term kibrāt arbāʾi in his inscriptions but used it with a new meaning. For
the first time, it is possible to speak of kibrāt arbāʾi as denoting the ‘universe’,

153 See also Pongratz-Leisten 1997a.

154 Machinist 1993, 89.
155 Pongratz-Leisten 2011a and 2013b.
176 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

since the term is combined with the image of the universal presence of the
sun:

man dan-nu ˹le-ú˺ murub₄ strong king, [capable] in battle,

˹šá˺ kib-rat 4 ˹ar-ki˺ dšá-maš the one who shepherds the four quarters [after] Šamaš,
ir-te-ú ana-ku am I.156

By means of various cultural strategies, the king and his scholars strove to
create a locative map of the world that communicated meaning through struc-
tures of congruity and conformity,157 based on the homogeneous action of the
gods and the king. In this map, all positive qualities were concentrated in the
center, while all negative qualities were pushed toward the periphery.158 Order
and anti-order corresponded with center and periphery and with the inner and
the outer world; spatiality as a whole was reduced to binary dichotomies such
as cultivated land/civilization versus nature/steppe/wilderness. This construc-
tion was based on the psychological need for security159 and constituted the
foundation for the Assyrian revival of the well-known tropes of the king as
hunter, warrior, and builder of temples.
The imbalance in status between center and periphery allowed for only
one ‘correct’ political solution: universal empire as programmatically stated in
the Assyrian coronation ritual. By divine command the king was obliged to
enlarge the borders of his empire outward, toward the unknown. Such expan-
sion mirrors the path taken by Gilgameš in his march to the lands beyond the
cosmic ocean, as it is conveyed in the Babylonian Map. The fluid geographical
notion of imperial boundaries – which responded to political realities – gener-
ated a concept of empire that extended across the entire universe and whose
borders were thus equivalent to the borders of the cosmos.160 This dynamic
conception of political borders obliged the king to keep expanding his frontiers
so as to align them with those of the cosmos.
In his discussion of the Sargon Geography, which he attributes to Esarhad-
don, Liverani demonstrates that until the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I the Eu-
phrates and the Zagros mountains represented the boundaries of Assyrian ter-
ritory in the Assyrian mental map.161 When in the 13th century BCE Assyrian
expeditions crossed the Euphrates and advanced toward the Mediterranean

156 RIMA 1, A.0.78.1:16‒18.

157 J. Z. Smith 1993, 292.
158 Liverani, 2001, 17 f.
159 Liverani 2001, 17 f.
160 Liverani 2001, 29.
161 Liverani 1999‒2001.
 The Literarization of the Empire 177

Sea, when Assyrian forces penetrated the mountainous regions to the north
and east, notably the Nairi lands and Zamua, the established Assyrian mental
map was no longer valid. The expansion of Assyrian territorial control beyond
the Euphrates and toward the Mediterranean Sea meant that the oceans were
now imagined as representing the ends of the world. Accordingly, the ideal
concept of the elimination of difference between center and periphery domi-
nated the inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian kings. King Shalmaneser III de-
scribes himself as the “conqueror from the upper and lower seas to the land
Nairi and the great sea of the west as far as the Amanus range … 〈from〉 the land
Namri to the sea of Chaldea, which is called the Marratu (‘Bitter’) River.”162 In
other words, Shalmaneser III claims to have reached the banks of the four seas:
the upper and lower seas of Nairi, probably Lake Van and Lake Urmia, as well
as the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.163 By using the Akkadian term
“Bitter River,” the scholar who produced this particular text intended to evoke
an image of Shalmaneser III’s territory that reached the shore of the cosmic
ocean surrounding the earth.
Territorial expansion does not necessarily correspond to territorial control.
Nevertheless, a claim to universal control is also discernible in public monu-
ments, such as the iconography of city gates and obelisks set up in public
spaces and temples.164 The programmatic emphasis in these monuments is on
those geographical regions that are the most distant from the Assyrian heart-
land, suggesting the unlimited span of Assyrian political control. Iconography
of this kind is characteristic of the obelisks of Aššurnaṣirpal II and Shalmanes-
er III, as well as of Shalmaneser III’s city gates at Balawat – ancient Imgur-
Enlil – which was situated strategically at the intersection of major roads con-
necting east and west in the core of the Assyrian empire. The geographical
regions depicted on the Balawat gates and mentioned in the accompanying
epigraphs include Phoenician cities and Qarqar in the west, the Tigris tunnel
and Urartu in the north, Lake Urmia and Gilzānu in the East, and Bīt Dakkūri
in the South.165 In these depictions, the emphasis is on the subjugation of dis-
tant regions and on the bringing of tribute to the Assyrian king, thereby con-
tributing to the king’s prestige as provider for his country. Since the main roads
of the city were oriented toward the city gates, the location for such a program-
matic message was well chosen. Additionally, city gates represented the limin-

162 RIMA 3, A.0.102.8:24‒40.

163 Heimpel 1987; Villard 2000, 74.
164 Schachner 2007, pls. 70 and 71.
165 Schachner 2007, 262.
178 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

al zone between inside and outside, order and anti-order.166 Therefore, Shal-
maneser III’s choice of imagery is perfectly suited to illustrating the king’s role
as warrior fighting external chaos. The material composition of the gates en-
hanced their potency as the image of the cosmos. They were made from cedar
wood, which was associated with the Lebanon, and overlaid with copper
bands, copper traditionally being associated with the east; as such, the very
materiality of the gates symbolized the expansion of Assyrian power both to-
ward the west and the east.167 The imagery of the city gates evoked the cosmos
known to the Assyrian people, communicating their message even to the illiter-
ate majority that would not have been able to read the accompanying inscrip-
tions. Landscape representations on the gates portray a macro-region in which
mountains are associated with the north and northeast, rivers associated with
the south, and the ocean with the west.
Once established, the cosmic dimensions of Assyrian expansion continued
to dominate the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings. Tiglath-pileser III, for exam-
ple, strives to outdo his predecessors by moving from the horizontal to the
vertical axis and claiming that the borders of his empire reach “[from] the hori-
zon to the zenith” (ultu išid šamê adi elât šamê), which in literary texts denotes
the boundaries of the sun and the moon.168 The ocean is no boundary for Sar-
gon II (721‒705 BC), whose conquest of the island of Cyprus in the Mediterrane-
an Sea – a journey of seven days in the midst of the western sea (7 ūmī ina
qabal tâmtim) – overcomes the established frontiers of the cosmos.169 Sargon
II also conquers the island of Dilmun, situated 30 miles inside the eastern sea
(=the Persian Gulf), and thus subdues both ends of the known world.170 These
conquests allow Sargon II to portray himself as the sun god Šamaš, who is the
only one capable of crossing the seas according to the Gilgameš Epic.

There never was, O Gilgameš, a way across, and since the days of old none who can cross
the ocean. The one who crosses the ocean is the hero Šamaš: apart from Šamaš, who is
there can cross the ocean?171

When Gilgameš emerges from the tunnel through the twin mountain Mount
Māšu on his journey to Utnapištim, he is confronted by the scorpion man and
scorpion woman who “guard the sun at sunrise and sunset” (Gilgameš Epic

166 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 207‒209; Frahm 1997, 273‒275; RINAP 3/1, 17‒19.
167 Schachner 2006, 266.
168 Tadmor 1994, 158 Summ. 7:4 with note 4.
169 Fuchs 1993, 232 145‒146.
170 Fuchs 1993, 232, 144.
171 George 2003, Gilgameš Epic X 79‒82.
 The Literarization of the Empire 179

IX 45). This association is explained by the nature of the scorpion that, as a

nocturnal creature, is a symbol of death and night. Further, due to the scorpi-
on’s regular ecdysis – the casting off of its exoskeleton – the scorpion is a
symbol of birth and rejuvenation in Mesopotamia.172 This further highlights the
iconographic association of the solar winged disk with the scorpion man,
which is present in Mesopotamian iconography throughout the millennia.173
The expanded perception of space, incorporating the unknown lands beyond
the mountains of sunrise and sunset, was crystallized in the Gilgameš Epic and
subsequently emulated by the Assyrian kings in their ideological self-represen-
tation.
As discussed above, the concept of an ideal world empire is expressed par-
adigmatically in the Sargon Geography and is associated with Sargon of Ak-
kad.174 This ideal world empire encompasses the entire surface of the earth –
“the lands from sunri[se] to sunset, the sum total of all the lands”175 – and is
represented in lists of place-names and geographical distances.176 The visual
expression of this ideal world empire is anticipated in the imagery of Sar-
gon II’s throne pedestal, which depicts the conquest of a city located in a plain
on a shore and of another city situated in the mountains,177 representing the
borders of the empire (fig. 23).178
Conventions regarding the appropriate use of particular epithets are dis-
cernible in the inscriptions of King Sennacherib (704‒681 BCE). The epithet
“king of the four quarters” (šar kibrāt erbettim), reflecting the cosmic dimen-
sions of the empire, only appears in his inscriptions after he had conducted
military campaigns in the four cardinal directions. Following Sennacherib’s
sixth campaign against Elam, universalistic-territorial claims are made: “from
the upper sea of the setting Sun until the lower sea of the rising Sun” (ultu
tâmti elēnīti ša šulmi dŠamši adi tâmti šaplīti ša ṣīt dŠamši).179 Sennacherib’s
scholar used a highly literary style replete with mythic allusions to the creation
epic Enūma Eliš in his account of the battle of Halule, such that this military
engagement assumed cosmic dimensions.180 As Weissert notes, the literary al-

172 Woods 2009.

173 See the examples collected by Woods, figs. 13‒20.
174 For the discussion and bibliography see Galter 2006, 290.
175 Sargon Geography 43: mātātu ultu dṣīt ša[mši] (dutu.┌è!┐.[a]) adi ereb dšamši (dutu.šú.a),
Horowitz 1998, 72.
176 Horowitz 1998, 67‒95; Galter 2006.
177 Blocher 1994.
178 Galter 2006 with reference to Winter 1981, 19, 26.
179 OIP 2, 23 I 13.
180 See the excellent analysis of Weissert 1997.
180 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Fig. 23: Sargon II’s Throne Base, Room VII, Khorsabad (after Winter 1981, 65; top NE side
Iraq Museum; bottom SW side, Oriental Institute A 11257).

lusions to Enūma Eliš are particular to Sennacherib’s account of the battle of

Halule and thus serve as an ideologically motivated justification for the subse-
quent conquest and destruction of the city of Babylon: “The demonic portrait
of the Babylonians, although sketched in the account of the campaign’s first
stage (Halule), actually expresses the intense and zealous atmosphere prevail-
ing close to, and during, its last (the siege of Babylon); further, that the mythic
presentation of the past events of Halule served in effect to create the right
political climate in Assyria for the impending materialization of Sennacherib’s
horrendous plans; and that the passionate rhetoric became superfluous once
Babylon had been sacked, and the frustration and hatred felt towards her stub-
born inhabitants had found their outlet in the final victory.”181 The conquest
and utter destruction of Babylon was deemed so important that it was also
represented in a mythologizing garb in a pictorial scene on the gates of the
akītu-house at the city of Aššur, where the god Aššur is represented in battle
against Tiamat.

181 Weissert 1997, 202.

 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 181

As Liverani ingeniously observes in his analysis of Sennacherib’s titulary,

it was at this point that the rhythm in the epithets changed from binary to
ternary, and the pattern from an antagonistic one into a centralized one. “The
two external titles, being universalities in character, are both opposed to the
middle title, nuclear in character.” But, as he argues the combination of the
first and third title “is not useless, nor is their order devoid of meaning. What
we have is in fact the sequence: 1) general, compact totality (kiššatu); 2) inner
core (māt Aššur); 3) patterned totality (four quarters). It is after the intervention
of the Assyrian core, the necessary reference point, that the chaotic totality is
changed into a cosmic totality.”182

4.6 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire

The approach to kingship and to royal control of the inhabited world described
above presupposes an interconnectedness of city, territory, and cosmos, and a
correspondence between the macro- and microcosm. This relatedness is reflect-
ed in the urban design of Assyrian cities and in the conception of the city as a
nexus or mirror of the cosmos per se. Sargon’s city of Akkad already appears
as a synecdoche for the whole empire in ancient historiography, as is clear in
the Curse of Akkad 183 and in other Sumerian city laments. These texts deplore
the destruction of specific cities even though the events they describe relate to
the collapse of the polities represented by these cities, namely the Akkad and
Ur III empires. The notion of the city as a synecdoche for the state persists into
the first millennium, as the city of Aššur epitomizes the local deity Aššur and
the broader Assyrian polity throughout Assyrian history. Major social tensions
were therefore presumably in play when Tukultī-Ninurta I attempted to move
Aššur’s cult to his newly built residence Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta184 or when Sar-
gon II founded his new capital Dūr-Šarru-kēn on pristine ground. The precise
character of these tensions will unfortunately remain opaque to us.
Although it has been speculated that the cities of the Luwian/Aramaic
kingdoms in northwestern Syria might have informed the urban design of the
Assyrian capitals,185 it is also possible that the city of Aššur, which was set on
a natural terrace above the Tigris River and developed over millennia, provided

182 Liverani 1981, 235.

183 Cooper 1983b, 1993.
184 Dolce 1997.
185 For an analysis of the topography of Aššur and the other Assyrian capitals see Novak
1999.
182 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Fig. 24: Plan of Aššur (TAVO B IV 21 Finkbeiner, Pongratz-Leisten, Bengsch 1992).

the model for the later Assyrian capitals.186 The fortress-like nature of Aššur’s
acropolis, which was segregated from the rest of the city by an additional wall
(fig. 24), was reinforced by the city’s location on a river bank and at the highest
point in the landscape. Due to climatic conditions and in particular to the pre-
vailing northwesterly winds, the acropolis in Aššur was located in the north-
western part of the city. The northern portion of the city included the palace,
temples, and residential quarters occupied mainly by high officials and profes-
sionals. This spatial organization helped to foster the distinction in status be-
tween the elites and the rest of the people and monumentalized the social
order. Aššur’s urban layout thus reflected the relationship between the gods,
the king, and the people.
In the city of Nineveh, which also developed over millennia, we find the
additional distinction between a citadel on Kujunjik that encompasses palaces
and temples and the arsenal located on a different mound, Nebi Yunus (fig. 25).

186 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 10 f.

 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 183

Fig. 25: Plan of Nineveh (Grayson and Novotny, RINAP 3/1, 19; after Scott and MacGinnis,
Iraq 52 (1990) p. 73 fig. 4).
184 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Fig. 26: Plan of Nimrud (TAVO B IV 20 2.2; Finkbeiner, Pongratz-Leisten, Bengsch 1992).

The city of Nimrud has a similar arrangement, as its citadel is separated from
the arsenal at Fort Shalmaneser, which is located on another tell (figs. 26 and
27). Both the fortified character of Aššur’s acropolis and the sharp spatial divi-
sion between the citadel and the arsenal attested in Nineveh and Nimrud con-
tributed to Sargon II’s design for his newly founded capital Khorsabad/Dūr-
Šarru-kēn (figs. 28a and 28b).
Despite the fact that palaces and temples are architecturally distinct, their
close connection in Assyria was enhanced by the spatial link between the tem-
ple of Nabû, which in Aššur housed the divine seal of the god Aššur, and the
palace.187 Sargon II went so far as to build a bridge between the temple of

187 George 1986, 140 ff.

 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 185

Fig. 27: Plan of Nimrud showing Fort Shalmanessar (TAVO B IV 20 2.1; Finkbeiner, Pongratz-
Leisten, Bengsch 1992).
186 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Fig. 28a: Plan of Dur-Sharruken (TAVO B IV 4.1).

Nabû and the palace188 and included the temples of the major Assyrian deities
in the palatial area, as is recorded in the inscriptions on the thresholds of the
shrine chapels dedicated to the gods Ea, Sîn, Ningal, Šamaš, Nabû, and Ninur-
ta.189 This spatial relationship between what we would tend to categorize as
secular and religious space links Assyria to the Syrian cultural horizon, as it is
also attested in Mari and Alalakh. It is a relatedness that was reinforced by

188 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 96.

189 Fuchs 1994, 280‒283, and 369‒371.
 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 187

Fig. 28b: Dur-Sharruken Palace Details (TAVO B IV 20 4.2; Finkbeiner, Pongratz-Leisten,

Bengsch 1992).

ritual performances that connected the two spaces.190 When the construction
of a new palace was completed, the king invited the gods, his high officials,
and the representatives of vassal states and foreign countries to celebrate the

190 See Chapter Ten.

188 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

inauguration of his new residence with a banquet,191 as is related by Aššur-

naṣirpal II in his Banquet Stele.192 This stele also lists a range of exotic woods
brought into Assyria from all corners of the world, bespeaking a new metaphor
for the notion of cosmic control:

I founded therein a palace of boxwood, meskannu-wood, cedar, cypress, terebinth, tama-

risk, mehru-wood, eight palace (area)s as my royal residence (and) for my lordly leisure
(and) decorated (them) in a splendid fashion. I fastened with bronze bands doors of cedar,
cypress, daprānu-juniper, boxwood (and) meskannu-wood (and) hung (them) in their
doorways. I surrounded them with knobbed nails of bronze. I depicted in greenish glaze
on their walls my heroic praises, in that I had gone right across highlands, lands (and)
seas, (and) the conquests of all lands.193

Numerous Sumerian cosmologies focus on the city as the structure of order

and civilization, distinguishing it from the uncivilized and unstructured realm.
The city is further sacralized in mythology, which attributes its origin to the
gods. In the first millennium version of the Etana Myth, the gods are credited
with designing the city and with laying its foundations:194

[They] designed a city,

[The great] gods laid its foundation.
[They] designed the exalted city of Kiš,
[The great] gods laid its foundation,
The Igigi made its brickwork firm.
(Etana i 1‒5)

According to theological texts the idea of the city hailed from the very begin-
ning of history, with the “city of primordial times” listed in divinized and per-
sonalized form among the ancestor gods of Anu in the great god list.
Although several kings built new cities or totally rebuilt existing ones to
serve as their capitals, they never boasted of having founded an entirely new
city.195 Rather, they commemorated the construction of particular buildings or
of the city walls. In other words, they represented their building activities as
an extension of a pre-existing city. In his record of the construction of Dūr-
Šarru-kēn/Khorsabad, his new residence, Sargon II for the first time in Mesopo-
tamian history challenged this traditional weltanschauung by emphasizing how

191 See references in CAD Q, 242 s.v. qerû.

192 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30.
193 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30:25‒30.
194 Etana I 1‒5, see Novotny 2001.
195 Van de Mieroop 1999c.
 The Assyrian Capital as the Epitome of the Empire 189

he himself “selected the site, made the plans and supervised the work.”196 By
comparing himself to the wise sage Adapa, Sargon II presented the city as a
project of his own mind, affirming that the “measure of the city walls repre-
sents a numerical cryptographic writing of his name”:197

16,280 cubits, the numeral of my name, I established as the measure of its wall and I set
its foundation on a solid bedrock.198

As Marc van de Mieroop notes, he thus “embedded his identity into the very
fabric of the city.”199 Further, Sargon II introduces the idea of a city plan writ-
ten in the stars through the rebus-writing of his name on the glazed bricks of
the temple facades, which probably represented five signs of the zodiac (lumaš-
šū).200 This divine city plan is then claimed by Sargon II’s son, King Sennacher-
ib, for his residence in Nineveh.201 Still more, Sargon II stresses the primordial
aspect of his work by harking back to the language of creation used to describe
Marduk’s formation of the universe:

The opening of the city-gates of Dūr-Šarru-kēn is described in the same terms as the lay-
out of the gates of the universe in the Enuma elish. Sargon II states: ina rēše u arkate ina
ṣēlē killalān miḫret 8 šārī 8 abullāti aptema, “in front and back on both sides, I opened
up eight city-gates into the eight wind-directions”, while the Enuma elish has this line:
iptema abullāti ina ṣēlē killalān, “he opened up gates in both ribcages.” The term ṣēlu
used here as the basic meaning of rib, which does actually reflect the side of the body.
That the phraseology used by Sargon is clearly intended to refer to the Creation Epic is
demonstrated by the fact that what he says does not accurately reflect his work. The city
plan of Dūr-Šarru-kēn shows that there are two gates each in three of the city walls, while
the fourth wall, where the citadel is located, has only one gate. The Akkadian ṣēlē killalān
“both sides” thus cannot refer to the city, while it perfectly well represents the two sides
of the vault of heaven, each with one gate to let the stars and planets pass through. This
may explain the rather awkward statement by Sargon that he built eight gates in the eight
wind directions.202

196 Van de Mieroop 1999c, 335 f.

197 Van de Mieroop 1999c, 337
198 Van de Mieroop 1999c, 336 quoting Fuchs 1993, 42 l. 65.
199 Van de Mieroop 1999, 337.
200 Finkel & Reade 1996; Roaf & Zgoll 2001.
201 RINAP 3/1, no. 3: 34‒36: “At that time, Nineveh, the exalted cult center, the city loved by
the goddess Ištar in which all of the rituals for gods and goddesses are present; 35) the endur-
ing foundation (and) eternal base whose plan had been designed by the stars (lit. “writing”)
of the firmament (šiṭir burummê) and whose arrangement was made manifest since time imme-
morial; a sophisticated place (and) site of secret lore in which every kind of skilled craftsman-
ship, all of the rituals, (and) the secret(s) of the lalgar (cosmic subterranean water) are appre-
hended;” see also see also nos. 15 and 16.
202 Van de Mieroop 1999, 337.
190 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

The configurational understanding of the Assyrian political landscape in which

the empire was coextensive with the cosmos is expressed in the names that
Sargon II gave to the city gates of his newly founded capital Dūr-Šarru-kēn. In
these names, the built environment of the royal capital is mythologized by an
explicit association of all the gates with the gods:

66 Toward the front and back, and on either side, toward the four winds, I opened eight
gates.

67 “Šamaš Makes my Might Prevail,” “Adad Establishes its Abundance,” I called the
gates of Šamaš and Adad which face the east.

68 “Bēl Establishes the Foundation of my City,” “Bēlit Increases Plenty,” I named the
gates of Bēl and Bēlit which face north.

69 “Anu Prospers the Work of my Hands,” “Ištar Enriches his People,” I gave as names
to the gates of Anu and Ištar which face the west.

70 “Ea Makes its Springs Flow Abundantly,” “Bēlit-ilāni Spreads Abroad her Offspring,”
I called the names of the gates of Ea and Bēlit-ilāni which face the south.

71 “Aššur Makes the Years of the King, Its Builder, Grow Old and Guards its Troops” was
the name of its wall, “Ninurta Establishes the Foundation Platform for his City for All
Time to Come,” was the name of its outer wall.203

In their vertical association with the divine world, the names of the city gates
of Dūr-Šarru-kēn read like abbreviated blessings or wishes in which the gods
continuously ensure the prosperity and security of the city. The directional ref-
erences are not topographical but point to the four cardinal directions, evoking
a cosmic extension of the city, which reflects the king’s claim to universal rule.
As such, the programmatic message of the ceremonial names of the city gates
of Dūr-Šarru-kēn focuses exclusively on the political-theological dimension of
the king’s alliance with the Assyrian pantheon.204 Sargon II’s ceremonial
names for his capital’s city gates contrast starkly with the known names of the
city gates of Aššur and Nineveh. In these cities, the names of city gates carried
a political-ideological or a theological message, or expressed a functional rela-
tionship between the city walls and the topography of the city, or related the
city to its geopolitical surroundings.205 Political and theological messages as
well as the expression of functional relationships appear to have prevailed in

203 Fuchs 1993, 42 f. and 294 f.

204 The same homogeneous picture is evident in the ceremonial names of the city gates of
Babylon, which although not founded anew in the time of the redaction of Tintir.ki must at
some point have been assigned a homogenous list of city gates, see George 1992, 199.
205 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 25‒31.
 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World 191

the names of the city gates of Aššur. In Nineveh, by contrast, there appears
to have been more of an emphasis on the political-theological and broader
geographical aspects that linked the city with the world surrounding it, while
ceremonial names referring to the inner life of the city were less frequently
represented.
Founding a new city was considered a primordial act of creation by the
gods; when performed by a king, it was regarded as an act of hubris. Sargon
II’s contemporaries criticized him by drawing an analogy with Sargon of Akkad
in the so-called Weidner Chronicle. In this text, the building of Sargon’s capital
Akkad is presented as a sacrilege which led to punishment by the gods: “The
simultaneity of the appearance of new stories about Sargon of Agade and the
acts of the Assyrian king could obviously be coincidental, but it seems likely
to me that we have here a condemnation of Sargon of Assyria’s project by his
own contemporaries through analogy with the ancient king.”206

4.7 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World

Although probably written in Borsippa during the eighth or seventh century
BCE, the Babylonian Map of the World is another document that reflects Assyri-
an cosmography. It is a unique exemplar of cultural tradition that combines
concrete geographical knowledge and mythic notions (figs. 29a and b) to form
a cosmogram, in which the meaning of place names is not merely referential.
The map represents a figurative conceptualization of space indicating constel-
lations of political power.207 The following considerations attempt to retrace
the various cognitive and cultural skills as well as the body of tradition neces-
sary for the creation of this map.
As part of their lexical tradition, the Sumerians from early on collected
geographical knowledge in their compilations of lists of words by category,
which also included lists of towns, mountains, and rivers. As with any other
section in these “encyclopedias,” these entries are categorized by means of
semantic indicators (determinatives) “such as those for country, city, river and
field.”208 In contrast to our modern communication paradigm, which is orient-
ed toward geographical location, these geographic lists tell us nothing in that
regard. Lists from Ebla and Abu Salabikh represent the earliest examples of

206 Van de Mieroop 1999, 338.

207 Michalowski 1986.
208 Hallo 1964, 61.
192 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Fig. 29a: Babylonian Map of the World (British Museum 92687, Courtesy British Museum).

compilations of geographical knowledge,209 and the tradition was subsequent-

ly canonized in the large compendium ur₅.ra=hubullu and its commentaries. In
addition to geographical lists of this kind there are topographical lists, includ-
ing the famous lists of the cities of Babylon, Aššur, and Nippur.210 These texts
can list the names of the temples and the gods living in them, as well as the
names of shrines, streets, canals, and city walls; temple lists should also be
included among these sorts of compilations.211 Within this larger framework, it
is also possible to consider the cadastre lists including the late census list of
Harran.212
Written sources concerning geographical perception and the conception of
space are numerous, but graphic representations are far less common and only
some plans of houses and temples213 and several maps of cities and fields sur-
vive.214 As William Hallo points out, all of these plans and maps served a prac-

209 Pettinato 1978.

210 George 1992.
211 George 1993.
212 Fales and Postgate 1995, XXXIII and no. 201‒220; Pongratz-Leisten 1997b, 76 f.
213 Heinrich and Seidl 1967.
214 See Millard 1982 for some examples and Hallo 1964, 61 for further bibliography.
 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World 193

1. ša-du-ú Mountain 18. BÀD.GULA Great Wall

2. uru city 6 bēru 6 leagues
3. ú-ra-áš-tu[m] Urartu ina bi-rit in between
kur
4. aš+šurki Assyria a-šar dšamaš where the Sun
5. dér(BAD.AN)ki Der la innamaru is not seen
6. x-ra[… (nu.igi.lá)
7. ap-pa-r[u] swamp 19. na-gu-ú Region
8. [š]uša[n] ([M]ÚŠ.EREN k[i?]) Susa 6 bēru 6 leagues
9. bit-qu channel ina bi-rit in between
10. bit-ia- (aleph)-ki-nu Bit Yakin 20. [na-gu]-ú (half brackets) [Regio]n
11. uru city [(…) [(…)
12. ha-ab-ban Habban 21. [na]-gu-ú [Re]gion
13. TIN.TIRki Babylon [(…) [(…)
íd
14. mar-ra-tum ocean 22. na-gu-ú Region
15. [(íd)mar-ra-tum] [ocean] 8 bēru 8 leagues
16. [(íd)m]ar-ra-tum [o]cean ina bi-rit in between
íd
17. mar-r[a-tum] oce[an] 23.‒25. No Inscription

Fig. 29b: Babylonian Map of the World with Sites Numbered (after Horowitz 1998, 21).
194 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

tical purpose, namely to establish ownership.215 Richard Zettler’s matching of

the Kassite map of the city of Nippur with the modern excavation plan demon-
strates that the ancients were quite capable of drawing a map that was true to
scale.216
Another body of practical geographical texts is nearer our modern notion
of functional geographical information. These are the itineraries, which origi-
nated in the contexts of military campaigns and trade. By indicating the “actu-
al distances between major halting places in terms of days or double-hours,”217
these itineraries testify to the “awareness of greater distances and spatial rela-
tionships.”218 They do not, however, have any function in their own right. As
is insinuated by the insertion of itineraries into annals, they should be inter-
preted as part of the process of mastering or taking control over a particular
territory.219 Detailed knowledge of the controlled territory was critical to mili-
tary operations, the movement of military units, and the transport of missives,
letters, and messages throughout the empire. Due to the different nature of
texts incorporating geographic knowledge, propagandistic in the case of an-
nals and practical in the case of epistolary literature, they complement each
other in reconstructing the geographical world as conceived by their au-
thors.220 The important conclusion drawn from these texts by Sabrina Favaro
is that ancient travelers oriented themselves according to the relationship be-
tween localities rather than according to the cardinal directions. Favaro argues
that the ancients did not have a holistic concept of the landscape; instead,
they envisioned the world as a homogenous surface connected by a network
of roads.221 If the king penetrated beyond familiar territory and traversed the
borders marked by the steles of his predecessors, his military expedition be-
came a heroic cosmic journey that secured his prestige and immortal fame.
Marching beyond the borders of known territory is a recurrent topos of the
Assyrian royal inscriptions in particular.
Awareness of scale and spatial relationships, however, was not the primary
determinant that shaped the Babylonian Map of the World,222 which is the only
map that comes close to reflecting a conception of the universe. The Babyloni-

215 Hallo 1964, 61.

216 Zettler 1993, pl. 7.
217 Hallo 1964, 62.
218 Millard 1982, 113 f.
219 Favaro 2007, 100.
220 Parpola 1981, 123‒124.
221 Favaro 2007, 100.
222 Horowitz 1998, 40 ff.
 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World 195

an Map of the World combines text and image, i.e. linguistic and visual imag-
ery. It does not present a clear message according to a primarily functional
communication paradigm.223 Rather, the map depicts configurational know-
ledge gained through increasing experience of the environment,224 and com-
bines this knowledge with a mythical perspective on the universe. It brings
together two different orientations: one that makes use of geographical fea-
tures like the Euphrates as reference points, and one that establishes relation-
ships between well-known cities and countries. A third purpose of this map
was probably to locate and describe distant mythical regions by situating them
in relation to familiar locales, such as Babylon, Assyria, and the Euphrates.225
Further, the map appears to have been oriented northwest-southeast, an orien-
tation that is known from both Assyrian and Sumerian temples, the latter prob-
ably providing the model for the Assyrian tradition.226 The northwest-southeast
orientation of Sumerian and Assyrian temples stands in contrast to the north-
south orientation of Babylonian temples. Thus, it is interesting to observe that
although the text of the Babylonian Map of the World is written in Babylonian,
the orientation of the map is inspired by Assyrian tradition.
On the map, the northern mountains (1) represent the origin of the Eu-
phrates River. The Euphrates in turn traverses the city of Babylon (13), which
is drawn as an oblong near the center of the map, and then empties into the
swamps (7) by the city of Susa (8), which is shown to the “east” of the swamps
and is connected to the Persian Gulf by a canal (9). Simultaneously, the map
suggests a rough division of Mesopotamia into territories located to the east of
the Euphrates, such as Urartu (3), Assyria (4), and Der (5), and those located
to its west, namely Bīt Habban (12) and Bīt Yakin (10). Der (5) is on the border
of Elam, mirroring its historic position as the strategic starting point for cam-
paigns against Elam. Susa (8), the capital of Elam, was also accessible from Bīt
Yakin (10), located to the east of the Euphrates and the swamps (7). Bīt Habban
regularly stirred up revolts against the Assyrians by conniving with the Babylo-
nians and was therefore often the target of Assyrian military campaigns.227
A Babylon-centric weltanschauung is apparent in the fact that these reference
points are depicted in a symmetrical way on both sides of the Euphrates, while
the map omits the Tigris River altogether, even though it was closer to them.

223 MacEachren 1995.

224 MacEachren, 1995, 172.
225 Horowitz 1998, 40.
226 Martiny 1932.
227 Pongratz-Leisten 2001, 275.
196 Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

Indeed, Babylon is located near the center of the map, while all the other loca-
tions reflect the status of satellites.
Beyond the continental portion of the inhabited world, i.e. beyond the
mountains of the sunrise and sunset, the map outlines the saltwater river,
called marratu, the “bitter one.” In the Babylonian conception of the universe
heaven and earth do not have a meeting point,228 and in order to reach heaven
from earth one must pass either through the air, as is the case in the Etana
Myth, or the sea, as is described in the Adapa Myth. In the Babylonian Map of
the World, eight distant regions (nagû) originally radiated from the saltwater
river, indicated by triangular protrusions. Of these protrusions, only five are
preserved. In Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions, the term nagû functions either
as a general designation for an area that is remote from the Assyrian core –
and by extension, a foreign territory – or it has a political meaning that refers
to administrative districts or provinces.229 The latter meaning is not applicable
to the Babylonian Map of the World, but the former is closely related to the
meaning of the term in literary texts, where it is used to denote extremely dis-
tant regions, as is the case in the Gilgameš Epic.230 In the Babylonian Map of the
World, one of the distant regions to the northeast represented by a triangular
protrusion is labeled, “Great Wall: 6 leagues in between where the Sun is not
seen.”231 Although this label is only written within this one region, its descrip-
tion can apply equally to the other nagûs, implying the transition from the
cosmos to a sphere that resembles the primordial state that precedes creation.
In the text that accompanies the Babylonian Map of the World, numerous
intertextual references are made to literary works. Notable among these are
the references to Enūma Eliš through Marduk’s banishment of the vanquished
monsters to the sea, to the Gilgameš Epic through the naming of Utnapištim,232
the survivor of the Flood who resides across the ocean at the edge of the world,
and to the historical epic of the King of Battle (šar tamḫari), through the cita-
tion of the names of Sargon, king of Akkad, and his opponent, Nūr-Dagan.233
In this way, the obverse of the tablet relates distant places to the mythical
and historical figures mentioned in the text. The reverse of the tablet describes

228 Izreʾel 2001, 139.

229 Machinist 1993.
230 George 2003, Gilgameš Epic XI 141 a-na 14‒TA.ÀM i-te-la-a na-gu-ú “In 14 places emerged
a landmass.” For further literary examples see Horowitz 1998, 31 f.
231 Horowitz 1998, 22:18.
232 Whether the name of Ut-napištim was intended or whether it represents a confusion of
the name of Sargon’s enemy in the Old Babylonian Sargon story remains unresolved, see van
de Mieroop 1999a, 71.
233 Horowitz 1998, 38.
 Excursus: The Babylonian Map of the World 197

conditions in these far-away regions, which represent the transition into un-
known space. Accordingly, text and image intersect in the Babylonian Map of
the World, which not only organizes and interprets spatial information, but
also symbolically represents the transition from historical real space to the
mythic space of the distant regions (nagû). In text and imagery, an expanded
cosmography controlled by the divine and earthly king provides the model for
control obtained through battle and conquest. In this way, the ideal empire
becomes coextensive with the cosmos.234

234 Bruce Lincoln reads a similar rhetoric in the Bisutun inscription of Darius, see Lincoln
2007, 71.
5 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion
of Kingship
5.1 The Title ‘King’ and its Implications
In Chapter Three, the Sumerian terms used to express the notion of political
leadership, namely en, ensi₂, and lugal, were referred to as part of the discus-
sion of the similarities between the titularies of the kings of Aššur and those
of Ešnunna. The precise meaning of these Sumerian terms varies according to
time and place. Nevertheless, when they are used to designate the role of the
sovereign, modern scholarship generally assumes that they were local variants
expressing the same essential concept: the term lugal was used in Ur, en in
Uruk, and ensi₂ in Lagaš.1 I do not intend to dispute this interpretation, but
I would like to illuminate what ‘political leadership’ signified in the ancient
Mesopotamian weltanschauung. Additionally, I would like to point out that the
relationship between the divine world and the institution of kingship might
have been conceived of slightly differently within ideological discourse de-
pending on geographical regions and historical periods.
It is important to note that neither the title en nor the title lugal appear
in the Archaic List of Professions as transmitted from Uruk,2 which has been
understood to reflect the social hierarchy of that city. Instead, a figure designat-
ed as namešda heads the list, a title that was equated in later lists with the
Akkadian šarru, ‘king’. Because the sign for namešda is composed of the el-
ements nam₂ + giš.šita (‘weapon,’ read éšda), it is tempting to link this written
evidence with the iconographic evidence of the ‘prisoner scenes’ in both the
Uruk IV glyptic and in the Lion Hunt Stele, which portray a ruler protecting the
community in the contexts of war and hunting.3
In the Archaic List of Professions, the sign en appears only in conjunction
with other signs to designate particular professions. It is not until the Early
Dynastic period that the title en is used to designate a leader who assumes
sacral and economic functions in administering the properties of the temples,4
and who functions in Uruk as the “chief temple administrator chosen by the
gods for his managerial competence.”5 This later written evidence resonates
with the visual message transmitted on the Uruk Vase, which depicts the ruler

1 Michalowski 2008, 33.

2 Englund, Nissen, and Damerow 1993.
3 Selz 2001, 14.
4 Selz 1998, 292; Rubio 2007, 24.
5 van de Mieroop, 2004, 45.
 The Title ‘King’ and its Implications 199

successfully executing the duties of his office by promoting prosperity and

abundance and thereby providing for the material needs of the temple. The
Early Dynastic documents of Ur, Abu Salabikh, and Šuruppak represent the
lugal engaged in military activities, taking care of the temples, performing jus-
tice, and supervising agricultural activities, including animal husbandry and
the maintenance of irrigation systems.6 In Lagaš, on the other hand, rulers
used both the title lugal and ensi₂,7 while in northern Syria en denoted the
local ruler of the city of Ebla and lugal was used to designate the governor,8 a
tradition that is still apparent in Late Bronze Age Emar.9 Only during the Sar-
gonic period did en begin representing the title of a high-level cultic special-
ist,10 at the same time that the kings of Akkad continued to use the Sumerian
lugal (lit. “great man”), equated with Akkadian šarru, to describe themselves.
The adoption of the title ‘king of Kīš’ around 2600 BCE in the Early Dynastic II
period, which plays on the homophony of the city name Kīš and the Akkadian
word for ‘totality’ (kiššatu), constitutes the oldest known attempt to express
the superiority of one ruler among the rulers of the other city states. By the
Sargonic period, the title lugal kiš(ki) had become iconic.11
In contrast to the historical reality of the early city states competing with each
other for hegemony, the mythological tradition of the Sumerian King List, accord-
ing to which kingship (nam-lugal) originated in heaven, could only allow one “le-
gitimate locus of kingship at any one time,”12 a position that circulated “among a
restricted number of cities.”13 The Sumerian King List excludes Lagaš from the
group of privileged cities that are said to have exercised hegemony at some point,
and it is possible that the political text The Rulers of Lagaš was produced in re-
sponse to this exclusion. This text, which was likely commissioned under King
Gudea of Lagaš, declares the primacy of the office of the ensi₂ over the office of
the lugal by referring to the city states of the Sumerian King List:14

When Anu (and) Enlil

called mankind by name
and established rulership (nam-ensi₂)
kingship (nam lugal), the crown, the throne and …
they had not yet sent forth from above.

6 Glassner 1993, 15.

7 Sallaberger 2006.
8 Selz 1998 cf. fn. 14 with further bibliography.
9 Seminara 1996.
10 Steinkeller 1999, 106.
11 Wilcke 2007, 28; Rubio 2007, 16.
12 Cooper 1993, 19.
13 Van de Mieroop 2004, 41.
14 Sollberger 1967; and recently Wilcke 2002, 67.
200 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

In the above passage, the textual evidence supports the modern view that the
various Sumerian terms for leaders all denoted rulership per se. The passage
also helps account for why the Akkadian term šarru was equated with numer-
ous Sumerians titles by the Old Babylonian period. Modern scholarship has
generally focused on these terms only in their denotation of political leader-
ship, neglecting the broader dimensions of Mesopotamian kingship. Impor-
tantly, texts like The Rulers of Lagaš also indicate that despite their similarity,
Sumerian terms for leaders had different connotations in different religious or
geographic contexts.
In the Old Babylonian Sumerian composition Inanna and Enki, nam-en and
nam-lugal appear in the list of me stolen by Inanna from her father Enki. This
demonstrates that nam-en “en-ship” and nam-lugal/šarrūtu “kingship” were
regarded as part of the cosmic principles and cultic norms (me) of the time.15
In Inanna and Enki, the office of nam-en is listed at the top of the hierarchy of
the important offices in Sumerian society, along with the office of the lagal-
priest and the concept of divinity (nam-dingir).16 It is possible that this remark-
able arrangement reflects an Old Babylonian reception of earlier historical real-
ity. Kingship is named only after these offices, and it is first deconstructed into
some of its representative elements, among them the insignia of kingship – the
lofty legitimate tiara (aga zid mah), the throne of kingship (gišgu-za nam-lugal),
the scepter (gidru mah), staff, and crook (ešgiri sibir), and the royal dress
([tug₂] mah) – and one of the important functions of kingship, namely shep-
herdship. The actual office of kingship (nam-lugal) only appears at the end of
this long list.

Inanna and Enki 17

d
 1 inana nam-en [ba-e-de₆]
 2 nam-lagal [ba-e-de₆]
 3 nam-dingir [ba-e-de₆]
Inana, [you brought with you] the office of the
en-priest,
[you have brought with you] the office of the
lagal-priest,
[you have brought with you] divinity,

15 For a critical perspective on this interpretation of the ME’s see Glassner 1992; Glassner
prefers to interpret the ME’s as characteristic traits of Inanna.
16 This interpretation could be corroborated by Steinkeller’s hypothesis that the phenomenon
of twin capitals in the early Sumerian city states – a religious center and a political center –
is a secondary development, and that in an earlier state the religious center was simultaneous-
ly the seat of political power, which combined cultic and military duties in one leader figure,
the en. Over time this enlost his power to the rising representative of the new political center,
the ensi₂, see Steinkeller 1999, 115.
17 Farber-Flügge 1973, 54 f.; ETCSL 1.3.1.
 The Title ‘King’ and its Implications 201

 4 aga zid mah [ba-e-de₆] [you have brought with you] the legitimate and
exalted crown,18
giš
 5 gu-za nam-lugal-la ba-〈e-de₆〉 [you have brought with you] the royal throne,
 6 gidru mah ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have brought with you] the exalted scepter,
 7 ešgiri sibir ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the staff and
crook,
 8 [tug₂] mah ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the noble dress,
 9 nam-sipad ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] shepherdship,
10 nam-lugal ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] kingship,
11 nam-egi₂-zi ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the office of the
egi-zi-priest,
12 nam-nin-dingir ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the office of the
nin-dingir-priestess,
13 nam-išib ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the office of the
išib-priest,
14 nam-lu₂-mah ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the office of the
lumah-priest
15 nam-gudu₄ ba-〈e-de₆〉 you have [brought with you] the office of the
gudu-priest.

The list continues with the offices of five other cultic specialists, including that
of the nin-dingir-priestess, an office that kings are known to have bestowed on
their daughters, and that of the išib-priest, a title that kings used themselves
to express their close relationship with the gods. The level of detail that accom-
panies the office of kingship – nam-lugal – communicates the constituent el-
ements of kingship to the text’s audience and points to its author’s knowledge
of tradition, as the list demonstrates an intertextual relationship with both the
Sumerian Šulgi Hymn X and with the Akkadian Etana Myth. These insignia are
not only conferred on the king by a variety of deities in other mythological
texts, thus anchoring the institution of kingship in the divine world, but they
are also subject to particular rites that secure succession to the office, as is
discussed in Chapter Ten.
Three interrelated aspects of the list of the me recorded in Inanna and Enki
require further comment. First, the list identifies the institution of kingship as
being part of the me, i.e. the institutions, offices, and forms of human behavior
that are inherent to and inform the social and cosmic order. Second, the list
demonstrates that the office of kingship, although distinguished by its various
attributes, cannot be separated from offices tied to the administration of the
temple and the performance of the cult. Third, the list reiterates the close rela-
tionship between Inanna/Ištar and the institution of kingship through the in-

18 ETCSL 1.3.1 prefers to translate the “great and good crown.”

202 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

clusion of kingship among the me that are stolen by Inanna. This link was
perpetuated in the Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian versions of the Etana
Myth and resurfaces in other media, notably prophecy, in which Ištar functions
as the voice of the gods on behalf of the king in the Diyala region in the Old
Babylonian period and later in Assyria.19
Crucially, all of the offices listed in Inanna and Enki are linked with the
temple in either an administrative or cultic function, except for the term nam-
lugal (‘kingship’), which denotes political leadership. The variety of these offi-
ces implies a division of labor among various functionaries in the socio-politi-
cal reality of southern and northern Mesopotamia. Simultaneously, the inclu-
sion of some of these offices as titles in the titularies of certain kings should
be understood an expression of their intimacy with the divine world and their
deep involvement in both the affairs of the temple and in the cult of the gods
of territories over which they exercised control, rather than as an indication of
the heightened religious sensibilities of a particular ruler. As such, epithets
like “išib/išippu-priest of Anu” should be interpreted as elaborations on titles
that signify the geographical expansion of territorial control. This becomes ap-
parent, for example, in the inscriptions of the Middle Assyrian king Tukultī-
Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE), who inserts this title immediately after the titles
“king of Assyria, king of Sumer and Akkad,” claiming in this particular case
Uruk as the southernmost point of Assyrian control:

Tukultī-Ninurta, king of the universe, strong king, king of Assyria, king of Sumer and
Akkad, king of the four quarters, chosen of the gods Aššur and Šamaš, I, attentive prince,
the king (who is) the choice of the god Enlil, the one who shepherded his land in green
pastures with his beneficial staff, foremost purification priest (išippu), designate of the
god Anu, …”20

5.2 Political and Religious Functions Intertwined:

The Title šangû
In addition to contextualizing the term lugal/šarru and the religious implica-
tions of the office, it is also necessary to situate the title šangû in Assyrian
culture, as it is exclusive to Assyrian royal ideology. Unlike in the Babylonian

19 Pongratz-Leisten 2003.
20 RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:1‒9: mTukultī-Ninurta šar kiššati šarru dannu šar māt Aššur šar māt
Šumeri u Akkadî šar kibrat erbî ništ dAššur u dŠamaš anāku rubû na’ādu šar nīš īnī dEnlil ša ina
šulum šiberšu irteʾʾû aburriš māssu išippu rēštû nibit dAnim.
 Political and Religious Functions Intertwined:The Title šangû 203

context where the primary function of the sanga/šangû was to act as the chief
administrator of a temple, in Assyria his duties lay primarily with the perfor-
mance of the cult, even though the šangû remained the principal figure associ-
ated with a temple.21 The Aššur temple was headed by a šangû rabiu (“high
priest”), whose central role was appropriated by the king in the performance
of state rituals; the šangû rabiu was assisted by a colleague, the šangû šaniu
(“second priest”). Every temple other than the Aššur temple had only one
šangû, who was responsible for all the divinities residing in that temple. There
are a few attestations of a šangû named Elalī already in Old Assyrian texts, but
the precise character of his position in that period remains opaque.22 Šangû
priests can be associated with a divinity (ša DN), a temple (ša É) or a city (ša
GN), the latter indicating the šangû’s high status among the functionaries of
the urban community. The title was written with the logogram sanga,23 the
same sign as šid/iššiʾakku (“steward, governor”). When the title was applied to
the king, it served to express his stewardship of the god Aššur.
It was, however, only under king Aššur-uballiṭ I (1353‒1318 BCE) that the
title šangû was introduced into the royal titulary.24 This programmatic change
in Assyrian royal ideology might have been a consequence of growing Hittite-
Assyrian interaction during the fourteenth century BCE, as the Assyrian under-
standing of the functions and duties of the šangû are more reminiscent of Hit-
tite than Babylonian practice.25 There are several known instances in which
the Hittite crown prince was installed as šangû of the storm god of either Kizzu-
watna26 or Nerik27 and of Ištar of Samuha,28 who are the principal deities of
the Hittite pantheon. Aššur-uballiṭ I’s introduction of the title šangû in relation
to Assyria’s supreme god Aššur was contemporaneous with the major expan-
sion of the city of Aššur at the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period and
appears to be inspired by the Hittite model in its delineation of the king’s spe-
cial relationship with the supreme divinity of the local pantheon. Like the title
iššiʾakku, the title šangû was used in construct from, generally coupled with

21 Van Driel 1969, 170‒74; Menzel 1981, 130‒133.

22 Menzel 1981, 130.
23 The other Sumerogram attested is KID.BAR with the variant É.BAR, see Menzel 1981, 132
with n. 1791.
24 Renger 1997, 170 fn. 3.
25 Taggar-Cohen 2006, 212 ff.
26 As is true for Prince Telipinu, who was installed by his father Suppiluliuma I, Taggar-
Cohen 2006, 225.
27 Hattusili III installed his son Tudhaliya IV as šangû to the storm god of Nerik, Taggar-
Cohen 225.
28 Taggar Cohen 2006, 225.
204 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

the divine name Aššur, though it does occasionally occur with the gods Enlil
and Ištar.
Peter Machinist has discussed with great sagaciousness the three titles that
are commonly attested together for Assyrian kings beginning in the second
millennium BCE and carrying through to the end of Assyrian history.29 These
titles are iššiʾak/iššâk dAššur, šakin/šakni/šakan/šaknu dEnlil, and sanga, which
entered the titulary of Assyrian kings at different points in history. Iššiʾak/iššâk
d
Aššur is the oldest of the three titles, appearing already in the oldest royal
inscriptions from Aššur, which date to the Akkad period. The title šakin dEnlil
was introduced by Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE) and relied on the Old Akkadi-
an model. Finally, as mentioned above sanga/šangû was introduced in the Mid-
dle Assyrian period. Machinist notes that despite the chronological range of
these titles, “all three terms appear to express in one way or another the notion
of ‘administrator, acting as a representative of higher authority,’ in this in-
stance, the king as administrative representative of the god to whom the term
is attached.”30 The use of the dating formula ina šurru šangûtiya (“in the begin-
ning of my šangûtu/šangû-ship”) to mark a king’s accession year, which is se-
mantically parallel to the formula ina rēš šarrūtiya (“in the beginning of my
kingship”), demonstrates that šangûtu was understood as a synonym for ‘king-
ship,’ šarrūtu. Although Assyrian ritual texts associated with the state rituals
refer to the king as šarru and relate that he was assisted by the chief šangû of
the Aššur temple, in royal ideology the king retains his position as the chief
šangû of Aššur. This notion, as Machinist reminds us, is clearly expressed in
the prayer performed by the chief šangû when crowning the king in the Corona-
tion Ritual, which survives in a copy from the Middle Assyrian period:

May Aššur and [M]ullissu, the owners of your crown, co[v]er you with your crown for a
hundred years! May your feet be good in the temple and your hands be good [a]t he breast
of Aššur, your God! May your šangûtu and that of your sons be pleasing to Aššur, your
God! Expand your country with your just scepter! May Aššur give you [c]ommand and
attention, obedience, truth and peace!31

The juxtaposition of šangûtu with the command to expand the borders of As-
syria confirms the understanding of the term as a synonym for ‘kingship.’ This
interpretation is further supported by the formula “the gods Ninurta and Ner-
gal who love my šangûtu” (dNinurta u dPalil ša šangûtī irammū) introduced by

29 Machinist 2006.
30 Machinist 2006, 154.
31 Quoted after Parpola, Assyrian Rituals, in preparation.
 Anchoring the Institution of Kingship in the Mythical Past 205

Aššur-bēl-kala (1073‒56 BCE)32 and reiterated in the inscriptions of Aššur-

dan II (934‒912 BCE),33 Adad-nīrārī II (911‒891 BCE),34 Tukultī-Ninurta II (890‒
884 BCE),35 Ashurnaṣirpal II (883‒859 BCE),36 and Shalmaneser III (858‒824
BCE).37 Indeed, the decision to associate the warrior gods with šangûtu is a
variation on the same message and conveys the economic and martial dimen-
sions of providing for the temple. The following passage from Šamšī-Adad V’s
(823‒811 BCE) inscriptions illustrates the dual role of the šangû by combining
the provisioning of the temple with the performance of the cult:

(Šamšī-Adad (V)) … whose name the gods designated from ancient times, pure šangû who
provides unremittingly for Ešarra (and) who maintains the rites of Ekur, who is dedicated
heart and mind to the work of Ehursagkurkurra (and) the temples of his land.38

It should also be noted that Ninurta’s role as ‘governor of Enlil’ included both
administrative and martial functions, which provided the model for the earthly
king. As the Assyrian kings assumed the position of Ninurta in their relation-
ship with Aššur, this double definition of Ninurta’s role in relation to divine
leadership exemplifies the complex notion of the king’s šangûtu in Assyrian
culture; this is further discussed in Chapter Six.

5.3 Anchoring the Institution of Kingship in the Mythical

Past
This is not the place to reiterate in detail all the cosmologies from the early
Sumerian debate literature or other text genres that contain cratogonies elabo-
rating on the creation of kingship.39 What is important to note, however, is
that in these early tales the city is founded by the gods before the creation of
humanity and the establishment of kingship. Humanity and kingship are re-
garded as secondary developments that follow rather than precede the idea of

32 RIMA 2, A.0.89.2:29′; A.0.89.7:iv 1 variation šangûssu.

33 RIMA 2, A.0.98.1:68.
34 RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:122.
35 RIMA 2, A.0.100.3′: 5′ (reconstructed), A.0.100.5:134.
36 RIMA 2, A.0.101.2:40; RIMA 2, A.0.101.30:84.
37 RIMA 3, A.0.102.6:iv 40; RIMA 2, A.0.102.16:341′.
38 RIMA 3, A.0.103.1:29‒32: a ultu ullâ ilānu ibbû zikiršu šangû ellu zānin Ešarra la muparkû
mukīl parṣī Ekur ša ana šipri Ehursagkurkurra ekurrāte mātīšu.
39 Among them are the cosmological introductions of the Song of the Hoe, The Rulers of La-
gash, and the epic of Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, to name some of the early examples
of Mesopotamian literary history.
206 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

the city as a seat of the divinity. This ancient Sumerian notion of the sequence
of creation persisted in the literary production of the first millennium BCE. It
appears, for example, in the Standard Babylonian version of the Etana Myth,
in which the gods plan and build the city of Kīš first and only afterwards decide
to look for a king. Like in the list of the me in Inanna and Enki, kingship is
described by its representative insignia: a specific headdress, the tiara, the
scepter, and the throne, exemplifying the conception of kingship in Mesopota-
mian thought in terms of its characteristic parts. The insignia were not con-
ceived merely as symbols of rulership, but rather as the essential material in-
struments necessary for the performance of rulership (simat šarrūti).40

 1 They planned the city […].

 2 [The gods? laid its foundations],
 3 [They planned the city? Kīš?],
 4 [The gods] laid its foundations.
 5 The Igigi-gods founded its brickwork […]
 6 “Let […] be their (the people’s) shepherd,
 7 Let Etana be their architect, …”
 8 The great Anunna-gods, or[dainers of destinies],
 9 [Sa]t taking their counsel [concerning the land],
10 The creators of the four world regions, [establishers of all physical form],
11 By(?) command of all of them the Igigi-gods
12 [ordained a festi]val f[or the people],
13 No [king] did they establish [over the teeming peoples].
14 At that time [no headdress had been assembled, nor crown],
15 Nor yet scepter [had been set] with lapis,
16 No throne daises(?) whatsoever [had been constructed].
17 The seven gods barred the [gates] against the multitude,
18 Against the inhabited world they barred [the gates …],
19 The Igigi-gods surrounded the city [with ramparts?].
20 Ištar [came down from heaven? to seek] a shepherd,
21 And sought for a king [everywhere].
22 Innina [came down from heaven? to seek] a shepherd,
23 And sought for a king e[verywhere].
24 Enlil examined the dais of(?) Etana,
25 The man whom Ištar st[eadfastly …]
26 She has constantly sought …
27 “[Let] king[ship] be established in the land, let the heart of Kiš [be joyful].”
28 Kingship, the radiant crown, throne, […]
29 He(?) brought and […],
30 The gods of the land[s …]41

40 Cancik-Kirschbaum 1999, 239 with reference to Podella 1996, 255 ff., esp. 259 cf. fn. 493.
41 Late version of the Etana Myth, translation: Foster 2005, 533 ff.
 Anchoring the Institution of Kingship in the Mythical Past 207

In addition to anchoring the creation of kingship within the larger framework

of the creation of the city, the text provides an argument for the importance of
the institution of kingship. It “argues” that the primary function of kingship
was to maintain or restore the social order planned and intended by the gods.
Accordingly, the text emphasizes the king’s function as shepherd, an image
that entered the iconography of the cylinder seals.42 Shepherdship in this case
means the ability to control the teeming populace in the sense of maintaining
civic order and ensuring that everyone contributes to the wellbeing of the gods.
A similar notion of how and why kingship came into being is apparent in
the Akkadian debate poem The Datepalm and the Tamarisk, which was recov-
ered from the library Šaduppum/Tell Harmal, i.e. in the cultural horizon of
Ešnunna. Copies of this text also existed in Middle Assyrian/early Neo-Assyrian
Aššur. Excavations at Emar have yielded a further exemplar, thus reflecting a
Tigridian and northern Syrian adoption of a text that is ultimately rooted in
Sumero-Babylonian tradition.43 The younger version of the text explicitly elab-
orates on the motifs of legendary time, the divine origin of civilization, how
the gods built cities and performed irrigation work, and on the gathering of
the divine assembly and its decision to create the institution of kingship. This
cosmological introduction is followed by the debate between the two trees,
which compete in their importance to the palace and the cult:

Šaduppum (OB) Emar/Aššur (MB/MA)

In those days,
in distant years,
when the Igigu founded the land,
the gods worked for the humans.
They assembled,
gave plenty to the humans,
and a king,
who would keep order
and strengthen the people,
and rule them from Kiš.
He planted a palm tree in his court …
On light days,
dark nights,
in … years,
when the gods had founded the land,
built cities for the distant humans,
heaped up mountains,
dug the rivers, the life(force) of the lands
the gods of the land assembled.
An, Enlil and Ea consulted.
Among them sat Šamaš and Bēlet-ilī.
The land had not yet received kingship,
and lordship was bestowed on the gods.
The gods, who had come to like the humans,
gave them [a king],
who ruled from Kīš.
He planted a palm tree in his palace.44

42 Steinkeller 1992, 252.

43 Wilcke 1989b with bibliography of the respective editions, and Foster 2005, 927‒929.
44 Juxtaposition after Heimpel 1993‒1997, 556.
208 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

Reminiscent of the Atramhasīs tradition, Bēlet-ilī’s involvement in the creation

of the king is explicitly mentioned in The Datepalm and the Tamarisk and pro-
vides a close link to the Myth of the Creation of Man and King, which dates to
the first millennium and was originally found in Borsippa.45 The first part of
this later text is very similar to the Atrahasīs Myth, describing the labor of the
gods and their rebellion and then proceeding to the creation of humanity and
the king. In the Myth of the Creation of Man and King, mankind is created to
relieve the gods of the burden of their work, while the king’s function is to rule
humanity and organize labor.
The Myth of the Creation of Man and King is important for understanding
ancient kingship, because it indicates that certain qualities were to be embod-
ied in the person of the king, such as beauty, perfection, strength, ferocity,
courage, and knowledge of the divine secret. These qualities enable the king
to prevail over others and fulfill the responsibilities of his office.

 1′ …
 2′ Their faces were turned away […]
 3′ Bēlet-ilī, their lady, was frightened by their silence;
 4′ she spoke out to Ea, the exorcist:
 5′ “The toil of the gods has become wearisome to them!
 6′ …, belt, …
 7′ Their faces are turned away, and enmity has broken out!
 8′ Let us create a figure of clay and impose the toil on it
 9′ and relieve them from their exertions forever!”
10′ Ea began to speak addressing Bēlet-ilī:
11′ “You are Bēlet-ilī, the lady of the great gods.
12′ … later
13′ … his hands.
14′ Bēlet-ilī pinched off clay for him.
15′ Craftily she made clever things.
16′ […] she purified and mixed clay to create him.
17′ […] she decorated his body.
18′ […] his whole stature.
19′ She put a […]
20′ She put a […]
21′ She put a […]
22′ […] she placed on [his body.]
23′ Enlil, hero of the great gods, […]
24′ [as soon as he saw him] his own features beamed.
25′ […] took a comprehensive view of […] in the assembly of the gods.
26′ His […], he gave final perfection to the created being.
27′ Enlil, the hero of the great gods […],

45 Van Dijk 1987, pl. XXXII Nr. 92; Mayer 1987; Müller 1989; Cancik-Kirschbaum 1995.
 Anchoring the Institution of Kingship in the Mythical Past 209

28′ Let me determine his name as [lullû-man],

29′ and gave the order to make him bear the toil.
30′ Ea began to speak and said to Bēlet-ilī,
31′ Bēlet-ilī, you are the Lady of the Great Gods,
32′ It is you who have created the lullû-man (ordinary man)
33′ now form the king, the māliku-man.
34′ His whole figure (gimir lānīšu) frame in excellence (ṭābi ubbihi),
35′ conceive (ṣubbi) his traits (zīmīšu) in perfection, beautify (bunni) his body
(zumuršu)!
36′ Bēlet-ilī formed the king, the māliku-man.
37′ The [great] gods gave the battle to the king.
38′ Anu gave him his crown, Enlil gave him his throne,
39′ Nergal gave him his weapon, Ninurta ga[ve him his terrifying splendor],
40′ Bēlet-ilī provided him with his beau[tiful appearance] (bunnānîšu),
41′ Nusku gave directions, consulted him and stood in service [before him].
42′ He who spea[ks] with the king [disloyally or treasonably],
43′ if he is [a notable, he will die a violent death].46

In the Assyro-Babylonian weltanschauung corporal beauty and perfection were

not virtues in their own right, but were instead a prerequisite for human inter-
action with the gods, as is evident in the performance of Assyrian queries to
the sun god by the diviner. In other words, the perfection of the royal body
was primarily intended to render the king a legitimate recipient of divine know-
ledge. This physical perfection was complemented by the king’s intellectual
superiority, which he obtained by virtue of his being the “image of the god”
(tamšīl ili)47 or the “flesh of the god” (šīr ili), and which enabled him to make
good decisions that further ingratiated him to the gods. In myth, the king’s
skill in decision-making is expressed by the participle form māliku, derived
from the root malāku, “to give advice, to ponder, to come to a decision.”48
Māliku occurs in line 33′ of the Myth of the Creation of Man and King, where it
appears to function as a pun for mal(i)ku “king,” derived from the West Semitic
verb malāku “to reign.”49 Thus, although both the king and the lullû-man be-
long to the same species (awīlu), the king is distinguished from the lullû-man
by virtue of his being a māliku who is appointed to the office of ruler (šarru).50
In line 37′, the author of the Myth of the Creation of Man and King expresses

46 Text and translation: Mayer 1987; translation: Livingstone in Hallo/Younger, Context of

Scripture I, 476‒477.
47 On the notion of tamšīlu see Pongratz-Leisten 2011b, 142‒143.
48 Discussion by Mayer 1987, 64 f.
49 See AHw, s.v.malīku III and CAD M/1 malīku B as well as the discussion by Renger 1988,
esp. 166 and 168; Zaccagnini 1993, esp. 56 cf. n.10 and 66 cf. n. 44.
50 Cancik-Kirschbaum 1995, 17.
210 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

the idea that battle was integral to the process of creation, and that it was
conferred on the king by the great gods. The sacralization of the body of the
king is further effected through the bestowal of the regalia of kingship by the
gods, as Anu gives the king his crown and Enlil his throne. The king’s invinci-
bility is in turn guaranteed by the weapons of Nergal and by Ninurta’s terrify-
ing splendor (šalummatu). Bēlet-ilī provides the king with his perfect appear-
ance, and Nusku stands ready to ensure the king’s intellectual superiority and
wise decision-making, which enable him to rule humankind.
Through its reference to the weapons of the warrior gods, the Myth of the
Creation of Man and King represents kingship as having been created in order
to pacify the world. Once he had proven his prowess in combat, the king was
called upon by the gods to rule on the basis of his perfection in body and mind.
As is discussed in more detail in Chapter Six, rulership implied assuming the
role of Ninurta as the executive agent in the performance of power, both in its
administrative aspect and with regard to establishing and protecting civic or-
der. Accordingly, the myth articulates yet again the model of a successful ruler
and the ideal image of his body politic, which was further negotiated in ritual
and image.

5.4 The Assyrian Notion of the King’s Shepherdship (rēʾûtu)

and Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn
The preceding discussion covered the implications of the titles šarru and
šangû, as well as the mythic foundations of the office of kingship in Mesopota-
mian tradition in general and in Assyrian royal ideology in particular; this pro-
vides a platform for investigating the trope of royal shepherdship, as the Assyr-
ians adopted a very specific approach to the king’s role as shepherd. Modern
scholarship tends to associate shepherdship primarily with the enactment of
justice, probably under the impact of the imagery of the Hammurabi Stele. On
closer inspection, however, it appears that this association only developed
gradually. Legal authority can therefore be enacted on the divine level by the
gods Ištaran, Šamaš, Adad, Ninurta, and Marduk, who assume the role of the
divine judge without any explicit notion of shepherdship.51 In the Early Dynas-
tic period Ištaran of Der witnessed the agreement between the city states of
Umma and Lagaš regarding the control of water,52 a tradition that is still appar-

51 For a survey on divine judges see Krebernik 2007.

52 Cooper 1986.
 The Assyrian Notion of the King’s Shepherdship (rē ʾûtu) 211

ent in Gudea’s building hymn, and by the Old Babylonian period the sun god
Šamaš provides the model for the king’s earthly dispensation of justice. In the
Sumero-Babylonian weltanschauung, the institution of kingship was designed
to uphold the social order through the enforcement of both justice and correct
human social behavior (Sumerian níg-si-sá/Akkadian mīšaru), so that the cos-
mic order (Sumerian níg-gi-na/Akkadian kittu) remained undisturbed.53 King-
ship was thus the focal point at which the social and the cosmic order intersect-
ed. The ideal king was charged with meeting the needs of civil society and
ensuring its proper functioning, as well as with providing for the cult of the
gods and maintaining correct communication with them. In ideological dis-
course, the implicit purpose for the maintenance of social order was to guaran-
tee the performance of human labor in the service of the gods.
Pre-Sargonic rulers sometimes stated that they were destined for shep-
herdship over the people,54 a claim that is reflected in the onomasticon in
names like ‘Enannatum-is-the-true-shepherd’ (En-na-na-túm-sipa-zi)55 and ‘the
king is a shepherd’ (lugal-sipa). In Akkadian tradition, the sense of ‘in accord-
ance with the divine order’ and ‘reliable in social relationships’ of the adjective
‘true’ – Sumerian zi/Akkadian kīnu – was linked with “king” (šarru) rather
than with “shepherd” (rēʾû).56 Further, until Šulgi the Old Akkadian and Ur III
kings made no use of the title “shepherd” in their inscriptions. In this case, as
in many others, the local royal discourse of Lagaš represents an exception, as
Gudea of Lagaš shared the title “shepherd” with Ningirsu and presented him-
self as the legitimate shepherd who is knowledgeable and capable of realizing
things.57 Explicit mention is made of shepherdship in King Šulgi’s self-praise,
where it appears in connection with the king’s enforcement of justice:

They (the Anuna-gods) made Šulgi’s shepherdship everlasting for me and made Šulgi, the
righteous one of his god, rise over the land like Utu for me. They set up a throne of firm
reign for him. The shepherd will decree just judgments and will make just decisions upon
it (?). They granted (?) Šulgi a royal crown ……. great ……. (Šulgi P Fragm. C 58‒65)

In Sumero-Babylonian royal ideology the king’s role as judge was reinforced

by the image of the king as protector of the weak and the oppressed, which is

53 The notion of mīšaru, derived from ešēru ‘to straighten out, to set right,’ comprises the
performance of royal justice and correcting iniquitous situations, thereby guaranteeing the
cosmic order (kittu), derived from the root kânu meaning ‘to be stable,’ see also Charpin 2010,
83; Démare-Lafont 2011, 335.
54 Steible and Behrens 1982, Ukg. 51: 1‒3, Luzag. 2:6.
55 Westenholz 2007, 307.
56 Westenholz 2007, 306.
57 Selz 2001, 16 f. with reference to Gudea Cyl.A 7:9‒12; 25:22; CylB 2:7 f. (see Edzard 1997, 73
passim)
212 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

already attested in the inscriptions of the rulers of Lagaš. It is clear from the
documentation of the Old Babylonian period, from which several royal edicts
survive, that this was by no means merely a literary trope. The purpose of these
edicts – generally proclaimed shortly after the king’s accession to the throne –
was threefold: canceling non-commercial debts, returning alienated goods to
their former owners, and commanding the return of individuals to their origi-
nal social status, which implied the remission of debt slavery.58 As Charpin
writes, the royal edict:

thus appears to be the exercise of a duty toward justice that the gods themselves expected
from the new king; it took the form of a ceremony during which the king brandished a
gold torch. The gold torch was obviously a solar symbol, the king being explicitly com-
pared to the rising sun. This is particularly significant given that the sun god, Shamash,
was at the same time the god of justice. A recently published letter connects that ceremo-
ny to the end of the mourning period observed after the death of the previous king: ‘The
king promulgated the ‘restoration’ [mīšarum] of the country; he lifted the gold torch for
the country and put an end to the country’s mourning.’59

Although it is attested for several deities following the Ur III period, the epithet
‘shepherd,’ sipa/rēʾû, most often occurs as an epithet of the sun god Šamaš.
Consequently, ‘shepherdship’ has been associated primarily with the enact-
ment of legislation, in which the king’s verdict before his subjects is analogous
to the sun god’s determination of man’s fate. Šulgi is, however, very ambigu-
ous in this regard. He first couples the trope of royal justice with knowledge
and military prowess and depicts himself as a king without rival, but then
states that his heart has never committed violence against any king, thereby
elaborating on the rhetoric first introduced by Gudea of Lagaš:

I have no equal among even the most distant rulers, and I can also state that my deeds
are great deeds. Everything is achievable by me, the king. Since the time when Enlil gave
me the direction of his numerous people in view of my wisdom(geštug₂), my extraordinary
power (á dirig) and my justice (nam-si-sá), in view of my resolute and unforgettable
words, and in view of my expertise, comparable to that of Ištaran, in verdicts, my heart
has never committed violence against even one other king, be he an Akkadian or a son
of Sumer, or even a brute from Gutium.60

As is clear from the entry rēʾû in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, the term can
serve as a synonym for ‘ruler,’ as seems to be the case in one of Iddin-Dagan’s

58 Charpin 2010, 86.

59 Charpin 2010, 92.
60 Šulgi B, ETCSL 2.4.2.0.2:259‒269.
 The Assyrian Notion of the King’s Shepherdship (rē ʾûtu) 213

hymns: “Iddin-Dagan, you are a shepherd (chosen by) his (Enlil’s) heart.”61
Similarly, in Hammurabi’s Law Code the king states: “I am Hammurabi, the
shepherd called (to rule) by Enlil.”62 This title is combined with adjectival at-
tributes and appositions like “I am the strong shepherd, the shepherd of the
widespread people, I am the hero, the protector, who made secure the founda-
tion of his father’s throne,”63 and statements like that of King Narām-Sîn in
the Cuthean Legend, “I am a king who does not keep his country safe, a shep-
herd who does not keep his people safe.”64 The title also appears in the epithet
chosen by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, who is called “the shepherd of
all foreign rulers.”65 The various contexts in which the term rēʾû figures all
indicate that the primary task of the king as shepherd was to protect his people
from any external threat or inner turmoil, in much the same way that a shep-
herd would be expected to protect his flock from wild animals.
Hammurabi’s epithet ‘shepherd of the people’ (rēʾî nišī), which appears in
the prologue to his Law Code (CH iv 45), reveals that shepherdship was intend-
ed for the people.66 This trope is also attested separately in Hammurabi’s Law
Code, preceding the trope of the sun and the light as a metaphor for control
over the four regions. Tukultī-Ninurta I’s epithet, “the one who shepherds the
four quarters after Šamaš” (ša kibrat erbetti arki Šamaš irteʾʾu),67 is a new crea-
tion with imperialistic implications, as it alludes both to the implementation
of civic order within the king’s own territory and to control over conquered
peripheral regions. This claim to universal control is further apparent in Tukul-
tī-Ninurta I’s decision to replace the established epithet “chosen of Aššur” (niš-
īt Aššur) with “chosen of Aššur and Šamaš” (nišīt Aššur u Šamaš), as is attested
in inscriptions from his newly built residence in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta.68 It is
noteworthy in this regard that in his epic, Tukultī-Ninurta I still strives to strike
a balance between controlling the land by force and being “attentive to the
people’s voice, the counsel of the land,”69 a statement in which he distinguish-

61 UET 6/1 84 ii 4 ff.: Iddin-Dagan sipa.šà.ga.na.me.en

62 CH i 51: Hammurabi, rēʾûm nibīt Enlil anāku.
63 5R 33 I 22 ff. (Agum-kakrime).
64 OB Cuthean Legend, JCS 11, 85 iii 12.
65 STT 43:1.
66 Such an understanding is corroborated by the Old Babylonian Cuthean Legend, in which
the king makes the following statement: ‘I am a shepherd who has not cared for his subjects
(la mušallim nišīšu), JCS 11, 84 ii 12.
67 Machinist 1976, 473 and Machinist 2006; on shepherdship as a topos of royal legitimation
see Westenholz 2004 and 2007.
68 RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:3‒4.
69 Foster 2005, 302, TKN i = A obv. 25.
214 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

es between his own people and those people that are yet to be incorporated
into his kingdom.
The imperialistic claims and ambitions of Tukultī-Ninurta I’s new epithets
represent the direct antecedent to Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn, and the
nuanced distinction between inner and outer control continues to be integral
to its ideological message. Strikingly, the Coronation Hymn begins its invoca-
tion of the gods by referring to the sun god’s selection of the king ‘to shepherd
the four regions,’ and only then invokes Aššur. Both gods, however, represent
in the first instance the king’s imperialistic claims. Only after its introduction
of Šamaš and Aššur does the hymn proceed to articulate the utopian vision of
the just king who safeguards social order. As its name suggests, the Coronation
Hymn is mainly hymnic in character, but the prescription for a cultic specialist
on the third line of the tablet’s reverse side points to a cultic setting for the
text, as does the blessing spoken at the moment of the king’s coronation. The
ritual itself is performed before the sun god Šamaš, who is also the first god to
be addressed in the introductory hymn:

The Coronation Hymn of Ashurbanipal,

 1 May Šamaš, king of heaven and earth, elevate you to shepherdship over the four
[region]s!
 2 May Aššur, who ga[ve you [the scepter], lengthen your days and years!
 3 Spread your land wide at your feet!
 4 May Šerua extol [your name] to your god!
 5 Just as grain and silver, oil, [the catt]le of Šakkan and the salt of Bariku are good,
so may Aššurbanipal, king of Assyria, be agreeable to the gods [of his] land!
 8 May command,70 attention,71 truth and justice be given to him as a gift!
 9 May [the people] of Aššur buy 30 kor of grain for one shekel of silver! May [the
peop]le of Aššur buy 3 seah of oil for one shekel of silver! May [the peop]le of
Aššur buy 30 minas of wool for one shekel of silver!
12 May the lesser speak, and the [greater] listen! May the greater speak, and the
[lesser] listen! May concord and peace be established [in Assyri]a!
15 Aššur is king – indeed Aššur is king! Aššurbanipal is the [representative] of Aššur,
the creation of his hands.
16 May the great gods make firm his reign, may they protect the life [of Aššurba]nipal,
king of Assyria
17 May they give him a straight scepter to extend the land and his peoples!
18 May his reign be renewed, and may they consolidate his royal throne for ever!
19 May they bless him (by) day, month, and year, and guard his reign!
20 In his years may there cons[tantly] be rain from the heavens and flood from the
(underground) source!

70 Livingstone has ‘eloquence’.

71 Livingstone has ‘understanding’.
 The Assyrian Notion of the King’s Shepherdship (rē ʾûtu) 215

r. 1 Give our lord Aššurbanipal long [days], copious years, strong [wea]pons, a long
reign, y[ear]s of abundance, a good name, [fame], happiness and joy, auspicious
oracles and leadership over (all other) kings!
 3 After he has pronounced the blessing, he turns and pronounces the (following)
blessing at the opening of the censer (placed) before Šamaš:

 5 Anu gave his crown, Illil gave his throne; Ninurta gave his weapon; Nergal gave
his luminous splendor. Nusku sent and placed advisers before him.
 9 He who speaks with the king disloyally or treasonable – if he is a notable, he will
die a violent death; if he is a rich man, he will become poor.
11 He who in his heart plots evil against the king – Erra will call him to account in a
bout of plague.
13 He who in his heart utters improprieties against the king – his foundation is (but)
wind, the hem of his garment is (but) litter.
15 Gather, all the gods of heaven and earth, bless king Aššurbanipal the circumspect
man!
17 Place in his hand the weapon of war and battle, give him the black-headed people,
that he may rule as their shepherd!72

Ashurbanipal’s coronation hymn is an outstanding example of the consolida-

tion of tropes known from much earlier periods. The wish that ‘command, at-
tention, truth, and justice’ (qabû šemû kettu u mēšaru, l. 8) be given to the king
is reminiscent of the Middle Assyrian Coronation Ritual (Chapter 9.7), which
expresses the same blessing at the moment when the šangû-priest crowns the
king. This crystallizes the chaîne opératoire of the king’s interaction with his
subjects, as the king gains both their attention (šemû) and the obedience (ma-
gāru) of his vassals by his command (qabû), thereby establishing the order and
stability of the cosmos (kittu), as well as inner social order (mīšaru) and peace
(salīmu).
The reference in Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn to affordable prices for
basic commodities (ll. 9‒11) mirrors similar statements that appear already in
the prologues to the early law codes and in the royal inscriptions of Šamšī-
Adad I and Daduša from the Old Babylonian period.73 Likewise, the utopian
vision of the lesser speaking while the greater listen and the greater speaking
while the lesser listen is a variation on a trope of social peace and equality that
is already known from Gudea’s building hymn and Hammurabi’s Law Code.74
Lines 38′‒43′ of the Myth of the Creation of Man and King, which emphasize
the divine origin of the royal insignia, are repeated literally in the last section

72 SAA 3 no. 11.

73 See above Chapter 3.5.3.3.
74 Edzard, Gudea CylA+B.
216 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

Fig. 30: Coronation Scene on Assyrian Helmet (Born and Seidl 1997, fig. 22).

of Ashurbanipal’s Neo-Assyrian coronation ritual.75 Ashurbanipal’s invocation

of the sun god Šamaš is inextricably linked to his claim to universal control.
As a concept of Assyrian kingship, this notion is materialized further in the
statue ‘Sun-of-the-Lands’ (A[L]AM! dšam-šu KUR.MEŠ), which is mentioned
among the gods of the Aššur temple in a version of the Assyrian banquet ritual
tākultu76 that also dates to the time of Ashurbanipal.
The Coronation Hymn establishes only a secondary association with the
king’s function as preserver of justice, which is derived from the Sumero-Baby-
lonian role of the sun god.77 An important point of divergence is the imagery
of a Neo-Assyrian helmet that depicts the coronation scene, as it portrays the
gods Aššur and Ištar/Mullissu as the ones who give the king the insignia of
kingship (fig. 30). The concept of the king as judge is absent from Assyrian
royal ideology after the Old Assyrian period, reappearing only under the Sar-
gonids.78 In the intervening periods, Assyrian kings did not interfere in legal
processes but delegated the administration of justice to the governors, the suk-
kallu, and the sartennu, who dispensed justice within the regular administra-
tive framework.79 Direct appeals to the authority of the king (abat šarri ‘word
of the king’) regarding oppression at the hands of the administration were not
within the remit of the legal system.80 Thus, in a highly sophisticated and com-

75 For the discussion of the insignia see Chapter 9.8.

76 Menzel 1981, 114.
77 Pace Arneth 1999.
78 Tadmor 1987.
79 Postgate 1974.
80 Postgate 1974, 424; Faist 2010, 18, fn. 13.
 Conclusion: The Political and Religious Dimensions of Assyrian Kingship 217

plex way, the solarization of Assyrian rulership in Ashurbanipal’s Coronation

Hymn combined the Assyrian and Babylonian concepts of kingship.

5.5 Conclusion: The Political and Religious Dimensions

of Assyrian Kingship
Closer inspection of various Mesopotamian myths demonstrates that the an-
cient weltanschauung does not recognize the modern division between the
king’s political and cultic duties, which are generally separated into the roles
of political leader and priest in scholarly jargon. As shown above, the terms
iššiʾakkû and šangû could both be used to designate the office of kingship, and
both incorporated administrative and cultic duties. The role of priest and the
role of political leader were mutually dependent: the king had to pacify and
secure the inhabited world by eliminating dangerous animals that threatened
the herds and through military action against the enemies of Assyria, and only
when this had been achieved could the king take proper care of his subjects
and the cult.
The structure of the Assyrian royal inscriptions, which divides the narra-
tive into the description of the hunt, the military report, and only then the
building account (see Chapter Six), provides implicit proof for this weltanschau-
ung in its very organization. Although references to military conquests can be
found in Sumerian and Babylonian inscriptions, the strict sequence of royal
action stated above – hunt, warfare, and the building of temples – is typically
Assyrian, as is its articulation in royal inscriptions. A close reading of Assyrian
royal inscriptions reveals that the conquest of the ‘chaotic’ outer world was an
essential prerequisite for the construction of the empire’s cultic infrastructure.
Accordingly, reports of military campaigns and of the hunting of wild ani-
mals – both signifying battle against disorder – always precede the building
account in inscriptions dating from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1114‒1076
BCE) onwards. Similarly, the Middle Assyrian king Arik-dēn-ili (1307‒1296 BCE)
“argues” that it is only after building the temples for the gods – subsequent to
his pacification of the land – that the king can expect divine reward in the
form of prosperity, which is manifest in good harvests:

When I planned to rebuild that temple in order that the harvest of my land might prosper,
…81

81 RIMA 1, A.0.75.1:14‒17.
218 Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

The texts examined in this chapter illuminate the cultural reasoning that in-
forms the actions taken by kings in anticipation of divine reward. It is essential
to pay attention to the particular choices made in royal titularies and to the
distinctive structure of texts, which establish the king’s agency and make an
argument in their own right. This approach makes the modern reading of As-
syrian royal inscriptions at once more interesting and more enlightening, so
that it becomes possible to determine under what socio-political conditions
kings chose certain tropes for their self-presentation. These tropes will be ex-
plored in the following Chapters Six and Seven.
6 Administrator, Hunter, Warrior: The Mythical
Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

“Your son and grandson shall rule as kings on the lap of Ninurta.”
(Ištar Oracle SAA 9 1.10)

6.1 The Typification of Royal Roles: Homogeneity in Action

between the Gods and the King
According to the colophon of the Old Babylonian Gilgameš Epic, which refers
to the legendary hero as the “surpassing one,” prowess and virility were fa-
vored over all other qualities as the chief characteristics of the king. The flaw-
less physique of the king is perhaps best exemplified in a passage from Tablet I
of the Standard Babylonian Gilgameš Epic, which dwells at length on the quali-
ties linked to the prestige of the occupant of the office of rulership; it might
well be that this passage originally constituted the introduction to the Old Bab-
ylonian epic:1

Gilgameš Epic I 30 ff.

(30) Surpassing all kings, heroic, lordly in stature (šanuʾudu bēl gatti),
Heroic offspring (qardu lillid) of Uruk, a charging wild bull (rīmu muttakpu),
He leads the way in the vanguard,
He marches at the rear, defender of his comrades,
Mighty floodwall (kibru dannu), protector of his troops,
(35) Furious flood-wave (agû ezzu) smashing walls of stone,
Wild calf of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh is perfect in strength (gitmālu emūqi),
Suckling of the divine wild cow, the woman Ninsun,
Towering Gilgamesh is uncannily perfect (gitmālu rašubbu).
…
(47) Who could be like his for kingly virtue ([ša itti]šu iššannanu ana šarrūti)?
And who, like Gilgamesh, can proclaim, “I am king!”
Gilgamesh was singled out from the day of his birth,
(50) Two-thirds of him was divine, one third of him was human!
The Lady of Birth drew his body’s image (ṣalam pagrīšu),
The God of Wisdom brought his figure to perfection (ulteṣbi gattašu).

(236) He is radiant with virility (eṭlūta bani), manly vigor is his (balta iši),
The whole of his body is seductively gorgeous (zuʾʾuna kuzba kalu zumrīšu).

1 Tigay 1982, 51.

220 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

In Assyrian royal ideology, physical wholeness and perfection of the body were
considered the basic requirement for rulership, as only the perfect body could
represent a body politic. Accordingly, corporal perfection was essential if the
king was to be entrusted with the shepherdship of the people, a view reflected
in one of Adad-nīrārī II’s (911‒891 BCE) inscriptions:

The great gods, who take firm decisions, who decree destinies, they properly created me,
Adad-nīrārī, attentive prince, […], they altered my stature to lordly stature (nabnīti bēlūti),
they rightly made perfect my features (šikin bunnannīya) and filled my lordly body (zumur
bēlūtīya) with wisdom. After the great gods had decreed (my destiny, after) they had en-
trusted to me the scepter for the shepherding of the people, (after) they had raised me
above crowned kings (and) placed on my head the royal splendor (melamme šarrūti), they
made my almighty name greater then (that of) all lords, the important name Adad-nīrārī,
king of Assyria, they called me. Strong king, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters,
sun of all people, I:2

It should be noted that in Adad-nīrārī II’s royal inscription, the perfection of

the king’s body is enhanced by the divine grant of splendor (melammu). The
notion of royal melammu was first introduced in Middle Assyrian epic litera-
ture, and the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic in particular dwells at length on the scorch-
ing effect of the king’s terrifying splendor; this motif likely developed as a
consequence of the king’s emulation of the divine Ninurta figure, as is further
discussed below. Vitality, vigor, and awe-inspiring strength – bordering on out-
right aggression – were regarded as prerequisites for successful royal perfor-
mance. Masculine vigor and power, qualities necessary for the prosecution of
warfare against rebels and enemies, were conceived of as divine characteristics
that were given to the king already at his birth. In the Mesopotamian weltan-
schauung, these masculine qualities were inextricably linked to male potency
and sexuality. Authority and dominance presupposed perfection, which is ex-
pressed in the terms banû and damqu, along with life force, vitality (baštu/
baltu), and sexual allure (kuzbu).3 This set of qualities is combined in the de-
scription of Gilgamesh to define the king’s body as the body politic, thereby
establishing him as an “effective signifier of heroic virtue”4 (fig. 31).
It was the king’s perfect body that distinguished him from the rest of hu-
mankind and associated him with the divine world. The semi-divine hero Gil-

2 RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:5‒10.
3 Winter 1996, 11 ff.
4 Winter 1996, 19.
 The Typification of Royal Roles 221

Fig. 31: Neo-Assyrian Seal Depicting Gilgamesh in the Garb of the Assyrian King
(Lambert 2010, 358 pl. VIII, fig. 7).

gamesh is the primary exemplar of such rulers,5 but this idea is equally con-
veyed by Tukultī-Ninurta I’s (1233‒1197 BCE) self-praise in the Tukultī-Ninurta
Epic, which constitutes the first stage of a major appropriation of literary tradi-
tions from the Sumero-Babylonian south after the reign of Šamšī-Adad I. Al-
though the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic is written in Standard Babylonian, uses the tri-
partite structure of building inscriptions, relies on tropes such as divine parent-
age, and associates the two Babylonian chief deities Enlil and Ea with the king,
it is distinctly Assyrian in its literary expression and in its ideological message,
which focus on the warrior-like qualities of the king and compare him to the
ravaging gods Adad and Ninurta:6

(10′) Glorious is his (the king’s) vehemence (šarrahat mamlūssu); it scor[ches the dis]re-
spectful in front and rear. 11′ Glowing is his aggressiveness (qāʾedat irhūssu); it burns the
disobedient to the left and right. 12′ His radiances are frightful (melammūšu); they over-
whelm all the enemies. 13′ He who (controls) the entire four directions (the whole uni-
verse), the awe-inspiring one – the assembly of all kings fear him continually. 14′ When
he thunders like Adad, the mountains (=foreign lands) tremble. 15′ And when he raises
his weapons like Ninurta, the regions (of the world) everywhere are thrown into constant
panic. 16′ By the fate (determined by) Nudimmud, his mass is reckoned with the flesh of
the gods (šīr ilāni). 17′ By the decision of the lord of all the lands, he was successfully
engendered through/cast into the channel of the womb of the gods. 18′ He alone is the

5 Winter 1996, 16.

6 Machinist 1976, 466 f.
222 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

eternal image of Enlil (ṣalam dEnlil), attentive to the voice of the people, to the counsel
of the land. 19′ Because the lord of the world appointed him to lead the troops, he praised
him with his very lips, 20′ Enlil raised him like a natural father, after his firstborn son.7

The Assyrian exposition of and reflection upon the king’s perfect body emerged
directly from the notion of the social person of the ruler, which included the
concept of the homogeneity in action between the gods and the king. Such
homogeneity in action is frequently proclaimed in royal inscriptions and elabo-
rated on beautifully in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, where it is based on the very
material quality of the king’s status as “the flesh of the gods” (šīr ilāni) and as
an “image of [the supreme god] Enlil” (ṣalam dEnlil), as well as in the king’s
association with Enlil’s son, the warrior god Ninurta, the divine model to
whom the king is compared in this passage of the epic. Interesting in this re-
gard is the fact that in this passage the king’s prowess and global reach are
juxtaposed and interwoven with the praise of his unequalled status before the
gods.8
As negotiated in myth and in omen compendia, beauty, physical integrity,
and virility comprised the visual signifiers of the king’s suitability for the royal
office and portended his future success. The perfect body of the king was trans-
formed into a semiotic landscape, read as a favorable sign guaranteeing stabili-
ty and abundance in the land. It is not surprising, then, that the royal physi-
cians and exorcists of Esarhaddon labored under terrible pressure to hide the
physical weaknesses of the king, manifested in a skin rash and other chronic
afflictions, from public view.9 Beauty, physical integrity, and virility became
the essential tropes of the visual and ritual display of the king’s image, while
his individual personality was subsumed within the various official settings of
palatial wall reliefs and steles, triumph and state rituals, journeys to his vari-
ous palaces and residences throughout Assyria, and other occasions of public
presentation. All of these media and their various settings functioned to recip-
rocally augment each other’s message in a variety of ways and through a var-
iety of referencing devices. What remained constant was “the emphasis on the
role and figure of the ruler throughout a host of narrative and iconic represen-
tations: engaged in ritual practice, facing an enemy citadel or in the lead chari-
ot of a campaign attack.”10
Tukultī-Ninurta I’s characterization of the king as the image of Ninurta was
introduced following his conquest of Babylonia and the concomitant appropri-

7 Tukulti-Ninurta Epic I A 10′‒20′, edition: Machinist 1978; see also Foster 2005, 298‒317.
8 Machinist 2011, 411.
9 Radner 2003.
10 Winter 1997, 363.
 The Typification of Royal Roles 223

ation of Babylonian cultural knowledge. The king as hero – traversing difficult

terrain, crossing rivers and even the sea, climbing steep mountains, personally
combating the enemy – represented the central innovation and leitmotif in As-
syrian ideological discourse during the Middle Assyrian period and came to
dominate text, ritual, and image until the collapse of the empire. Although the
Tukultī-Ninurta Epic was informed by the tradition of former Babylonian court
poetry including royal hymns and epics, its author created a completely new
discourse centered on the king’s identification with Ninurta. The importance
of the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic to the development of Assyrian royal ideology can-
not be stressed enough, as its author, steeped in both Assyrian and Babylonian
traditions, established all of the important rhetorical devices and motifs that
later featured in the royal inscriptions of Assyrian kings from Tiglath-Pileser I
(1114‒1076 BCE) onward. Indeed, some of these tropes and rhetorical devices
are known exclusively from the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic and royal inscriptions
through to the Sargonid period, when they are revived and elaborated. Beyond
the notion of the king embodying the warrior god Ninurta, these motifs include
the representation of the enemy leader as violating a treaty previously estab-
lished with the Assyrian king: this ultimately becomes the standard justifica-
tion for the Assyrian kings’ military campaigns in their commemorative inscrip-
tions and annals. A further motif introduced in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic is that
of soldiers dancing furiously before battle, brandishing their sharpened weap-
ons and taking on strange forms like that of Anzû before proceeding to swirl
like a whirlwind in combat (v = A rev. 45′ ff.); this image is later applied to the
king himself, who is compared to the sandstorm and flood. At the end of the
epic, the king is praised in relation to Nabû – originally a Babylonian divinity
associated with knowledge and wisdom – reflecting Tukultī-Ninurta I’s own
self-representation as a sagacious, perceptive, and competent ruler, which is
discussed in Chapter Seven, and anticipating the central role of Nabû in Assyri-
an culture during the first millennium BCE.11 There is a marked interdepend-
ence in the roles of protagonists, the plotlines, and the shared motifs of myth,
epic literature, and royal inscriptions; this interdependence is the focus both
of this chapter and of Chapter Seven.
The plasticity and malleability of the royal image enabled the hidden
agents of royal representation, i.e. the scholars, to fashion the virtual image of
the king in such a way as to construct a ‘second reality’ anchored in the coher-
ent framework of Assyrian cosmology; this ‘second reality’ then completely
replaced actual reality. The constructed royal image had three primary mani-

11 For a discussion of Nabû’s role in Assyria see Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 96‒102.

224 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

festations: the administrative/legal, the political, and the sacral image.12 Ac-
cording to particular contexts or historical circumstances, ideological dis-
course emphasized specific royal roles and actions, thus maintaining the no-
tion of the cosmic-political order and shaping not only the profile of the
individual king, but also social reality.
This virtual image of royal perfection did not represent an accomplishment
in its own right, but rather served to advance the notion of homogeneity in
action between the gods and the king, enabling the king to meet the expecta-
tions linked with the various roles of the royal office. In order to fully under-
stand the implications of human and divine kingship and their interdepend-
ence in defining rulership per se, we should remind ourselves that the king
and the gods were primarily conceived of not as individuals but in terms of
their roles and functions; this is similar to the conceptualization of the person
in antiquity, who is defined not as an individual but as a social type embedded
within a network of social relationships.13 This does not, of course, imply that
the identity of the individual was fully effaced by the primacy of group identity
and by social typification. Nevertheless, in the societies of the ancient Near
East the social role shaped the person more than the person reshaped the so-
cial role, and this typification determined the overall idea of the grand narra-
tives of myth, epic, and, ultimately, royal ideological discourse. Because the
conception of the gods fell into the same thought structure, the typification of
roles also entailed that social actors were conceived of less as unique individu-
als and more as interchangeable entities, and thus as types that could be either
divine or human.14 The king’s actions, consequently, could be shaped accord-
ing to divine models, or inversely, divine models could be shaped according to
the changing conceptions of human rulership. Heavenly kings and human
kings shared a particular assemblage of characteristics, roles, and functions,
as did the warrior god and the king as warrior, or the divine judge and the
king as judge.
The role of divinities as models for human beings applies equally to those
divinities that represent particular professions listed in the early god lists,
which are later commented on in detail in the Old Babylonian Sumerian poem
Enki and the World Order and in other myths, reflecting the diversification of

12 E. H. Kantorowicz’s model of dividing the king’s person into the body natural and the body
politic in his investigation of the political theology of the Middle Ages helps in understanding
this concept, see Kantorowicz 1957, 87‒97, 316‒317; for the ancient Near East see the discussion
by Winter 1997 on the basis of Belting 1994, 98‒99; Marin 1988, and Bann 1984.
13 Pongratz-Leisten 2011b.
14 Berger/Luckmann 1966, 72‒73.
 The “Divinity” of the King 225

labor in ancient societies. As the status of a divinity rose, so too did the com-
plexity of the roles and functions assembled in a particular type of personage.
If the high status of a divinity was complemented by the association of particu-
lar emotions and behavioral patterns, the personage could be as complex as
the goddess Ištar. Critically, when such types and their assemblage of roles
became common knowledge throughout Mesopotamia, they were negotiated
in the cultural discourse of local communities in theological as well as in ideo-
logical contexts. Regarding the conceptualization of rulership, this line of
thought applies especially to the typification of the god Ninurta, who emerged
as the model of rulership, be it human or divine, on the basis of the complexity
of his roles and his combination of both administrative and martial functions.15

6.2 The “Divinity” of the King

From an ideological perspective, statements asserting that kingship was divine
or non-divine in Mesopotamia offer little insight into the institution as it was
understood by the ancients.16 In Mesopotamia the office of kingship was con-

15 Modern scholars often draw on the indigenous terms of specific cultures – such as apothe-
osis, consecratio, heros, incarnation, and the likeness to god (imago dei) – to describe particu-
lar cultural strategies of assimilating the king with the divine. While all of these categories
stand in their own right within their respective cultures, we have to be careful when applying
them to the institution of kingship in Mesopotamia or to the larger ancient Near East. Further,
if we do use these terms, we have to define and justify this procedure. It was above all Sir
James Frazer who shaped the idea of Sacred Kingship in the Golden Bough, which was based
on the presumption that, in the “magic period” of mankind, kings possessed magic forces to
guarantee the fertility of their people. This force was not supposed to vanish, and at the first
sign of weakness the king was to be killed or replaced. Though the king as an individual dies,
his powers survive in his successor. Kingship in Egypt and Mesopotamia offered the best proof
for Frazer, who reconstructed an annual liturgy of the death and resurrection of the divine
king. This liturgy then generated the idea of the magic king, who controls the seasonal cycles,
as well as that of gods of death and gods of vegetation. Further universal aspects of kingship
put forth by Frazer were sacred marriage and the scapegoating function of the king, all highly
controversial topics in the history of religion.
16 With respect to the Old Babylonian period and the first millennium BCE Philip Jones only
recently stated: “Kingship was regularly treated as divine in the Old Babylonian corpus and
as non-divine in the first millennium one.” This claim seems to rest solely on the writing of
the king’s name with the dingir-sign and ignores the complexity of the strategies deployed to
sacralize and immunize the institution of kingship throughout the history of Mesopotamia, see
Jones 2005, 331. Michalowski 2007, even stated that far too much importance has been attached
to the divinization of kings in Mesopotamia. Winter 2007 suggests that sacral and divine king-
ship should be distinguished from one another.
226 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

sidered to be of divine origin and the human king was regarded as its recipi-
ent.17 The divinization of kings remained exceptional throughout Mesopota-
mian history. It is evident for the first time in Early Dynastic Ebla, where the
ancestor kings were deified in the mortuary cult and elevated to a status that
approached the divine.18 Their invocation in the context of certain state rituals
reveals that, owing to their quasi-divine status, royal ancestors were consid-
ered guarantors for the continuity of the dynastic line. In later times the names
of the kings listed in such invocations were not written with the determinative
for a divinity, but the understanding of the divine aspect of the ancestors must
have applied to the enthronement ritual of the Old Babylonian king. No ritual
prescription survives, but the text known as the Genealogy of the Hammurabi
Dynasty was certainly an integral part of the enthronement process.19 The invo-
cation of the members of the dynastic line is probably also evident in the mor-
tuary cult for the royal ancestors in Assyria, as two of the five exemplars of
the Assyrian King List survive in the shape of exorcistic tablets, suggesting a
performative aspect that likely involved the reading of names.20 Both lists
share an introductory section that includes the names of tribes who figured as
ancestors within the royal lineage, attesting to the diffusion of the idea of an
heros eponymos. This idea persisted in cultic texts from thirteenth century Uga-
rit, which even share the tribal name of Ditanu – the founding ancestor of the

17 A similar observation has been made for the Egyptian Pharaoh, see Leprohon 1995, 275 and
Gundlach 1988; a thorough comparison between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian concepts of
kingship is still wanting, as observed by Charpin 2008, 159.
18 ARET 7 150 records ten names in its beginning and proceeds with cultic matters in its
second section. That these ten names are royal names is confirmed by the entry en-en in obv.
iii 6; in addition, each name is preceded by the Sumerian word dingir for “god.” By comparison
with administrative documents, Alfonso Archi has proven that the list “follows a regressive
chronological order” and that “the first eight kings must belong to a period that predates the
archives, that is, before 2400 BCE” see Archi 1986 and 2001, 2. The regressive order in the
ancestor list is due to the oral tradition of genealogical lists and also known from the Assyrian
King List and the Ugaritic king list KTU 1.113. For the ancestor cult in Ebla see further Matthiae
1979 and Archi 1988.
An ancestor cult is also attested for members of the royal family and high officials at
Early Dynastic Lagaš, where the memorial services for the ancestors were held during the
festival of Baba (ezem-dBa-ba₆), the festival of Lugalurub (ezem-dLugal-urubₓ) and the festival
of Lugalurubar (ezem-dLugal-uru-bar-ka), see Kobayashi 1985. This tradition continued
through the period of Gudea at Lagaš, in which the name of the king was written with the
dingir-sign in offering texts, see for example ITT 2, 957 (Tsukimoto 1985, 62 f). For the Ur III
kings bala documents attest to offerings for the ancestor kings at the ki-a-nag on the eve of
new moon and full moon, see Sallaberger 1993, 63 ff.
19 For this text see Finkelstein 1966.
20 Yamada 1994, 37.
 The “Divinity” of the King 227

clan ruling the city at the time – with the Mesopotamian tradition. Interesting-
ly, in contrast to their Mesopotamian counterparts the ancestor kings were di-
vinized in Ugarit and their mortuary cult was mythologized.21
The deification of dead kings at Ebla and Ugarit must be distinguished
from the deification of King Narām-Sîn of Akkad, who, perhaps due to northern
influence,22 decided to write his name with the determinative sign for divinity
during his own lifetime following his suppression of the rebellions that marked
the beginning of his reign.23 Together with Narām-Sîn’s slightly later adoption
of the horned crown in visual imagery, the writing of Narām-Sîn’s name with
the qualifier for a divinity served as a new strategy for distinguishing the king
from the rest of humankind. Although the Ur III kings conceived of themselves
as the protective genii of their city or of the land (dlama Urim-ma and dlama
kalam-ma) beginning with the reign of Šulgi,24 this self-designation denoted
their protective role toward their subjects rather than an attempt to declare
themselves equal in rank with the gods. Deification, which aimed to illuminate
a particular function or characteristic of the king or just to revive “central au-
thority in a time of state crisis,”25 was still common in the Old Babylonian
period,26 but did not survive beyond it. Instead, ideological efforts were direct-
ed toward the development of cultural strategies that sacralized the office of
kingship by means of particular tropes that associated the ruler with the divine
world.
Since the institution of kingship demanded uninterrupted continuity,27 the
king was required to perform a range of roles. As is clear from texts, rituals,
and visual media, the king was the supreme administrator responsible to his
patron deity or to the supreme god of the pantheon; he was the foremost high
priest in the cult; he was a hunter and warrior defending not only his con-
trolled territory but also ideally the cosmos against chaos; he was the judge
and shepherd of his people; and he was the builder of the temples and the
caretaker of the cult. Even though such roles could also be performed by divini-
ties, who then served as models for their human counterparts, in Mesopotamia

21 Del Olmo Lete 1999; Schmidt 1996, 47‒122; Tropper 1989, 125.
22 Porter 2011.
23 Whether his deification can be linked to his victory over the rebellious city states is not
entirely clear, see Cooper 2008, 262.
24 Wilcke 1974, 179 n. 36; Selz 1997, 182; Sallaberger and Westenholz 1999, 153; Klein 2006,
120.
25 Michalowski 2008, 35.
26 Charpin 2008, 160 f.
27 Kantorowicz 1957, 87‒97, 316‒317.
228 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

the king continued to be regarded as a human being throughout his lifetime.28

Assyrian royal discourse integrated these roles into a logical, interdependent
system in which the successful accomplishment of one role reinforced achieve-
ments in the other roles and vice versa.

6.3 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology

6.3.1 Ninurta as Enlil’s Administrator: A Model for Assyrian Kingship

As demonstrated in the preceding chapters, intense cultural interaction facili-

tated the spread of Babylonian tradition into Aššur and northern Mesopotamia
already in the third millennium, continuing through to the Old Babylonian
period. This cultural interaction promoted the movement of Babylonian schol-
ars – and with them tropes concerning the image of the king – to the north
even prior to Tukultī-Ninurta I’s (1233‒1197 BCE) conquest of Babylonia.
Though it is poorly preserved, “the length and complexity of the Adad-nīrārī I
Epic suggests that it belonged to a fully developed Assyrian royal epic tradi-
tion,”29 which had incorporated and appropriated Babylonian literary models
from the legends about the kings of Akkad by the beginning of the thirteenth
century BCE. In contrast to the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, the Adad-nīrārī I Epic be-
gins by praising only the Assyrian king, anticipating his exploits and extolling
his role as administrator of Enlil; the position of temple administrator is de-
scribed by the typically Babylonian term šatammu (“chief temple administra-
tor”), rather than by the expected Assyrian term šaknu “governor,” which is
attested in the royal inscriptions from Aššur beginning with the reign of Šamšī-
Adad I. Like the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, however, the Adad-nīrārī I Epic cites the
transgression of a diplomatic agreement that had been concluded between the
fathers of the Assyrian king and the Babylonian king as the justification for
military action.
The passage of the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic that equates the king with Ninurta
suggests that during Tukultī-Ninurta I’s reign scholars explicitly formulated a
royal ideological discourse that was shaped by the theological concepts that
framed the roles embodied by the god Ningirsu/Ninurta. This discourse is ex-
tremely complex and rich in Sumero-Babylonian concepts. Accordingly, ex-
ploring the various roles and functions of the god Ningirsu/Ninurta is particu-

28 For a similar approach to the ‚deification’ of the Egyptian Pharaoh see Gundlach 1988.
29 Foster 2005, 293 and Machinist 1976, 182 ff., 312 ff. and 518 ff. and 1978.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 229

larly illuminating for our understanding of Assyrian royal ideology and the
choice of specific royal titles that reference the roles of kingship. Aššur’s as-
sumption of the divine leadership previously ascribed to Enlil, apparent in the
notion of the Ellilūtu, was accompanied by his assumption of Enlil’s fatherhood
of the warrior god Ninurta, whose functions and roles came to constitute the
model for Assyrian kingship. It is, therefore, absolutely essential to understand
Ninurta’s relationship with Enlil in the Sumerian-Babylonian tradition in order
to grasp the implications of the Assyrian king’s relationship with Aššur-Enlil.
Based on his divine genealogy as the son of Enlil and Ninlil, Ningirsu/
Ninurta was assigned the titles “governor of Nippur” (ensi₂ Nibruki) and “great
governor of Enlil” (ensi₂-gal dEn-líl-lá) by the Pre-Sargonic period.30 Ninurta
also functioned as the seal-bearer of Enlil, a role that survived into the second
millennium in northern Syria, where Ninurta acts as the sealing authority in
land transactions in the city of Emar.31 This function symbolizes Ninurta’s legit-
imate ownership of the land 32 and is an outstanding example of the seal repre-
senting Ninurta’s role in this particular socio-economic context.33 In the partic-
ular case of Emar, Ninurta represented the ownership and authority of the city
community and the city-elders rather than that of the king.34
Ninurta’s administrative function persisted into the first millennium, as in
Neo-Assyrian cultural practice the gods Aššur and Ninurta were regarded as
the owners of the seal that the kings used to authorize their decrees. This con-
cept is expressed at the end of numerous tablets: “ex[cerpted according to the
wording of a valid document (dannatu) with the seal of Aššur and Ni]nurta
that is [kept] in the Inner City in the temple of […].”35 As noted by Irene Winter,
a text from the reign of Ashurbanipal further illustrates the “extension of the
full weight of the royal office and its administrative bureaucracy” by reference
to the king’s seal on a tablet recording a royal tax exemption for an official:
“do not act negligently against the seal …” In this line, the seal once again
references the authority of the occupant of a particular office, in this case that
of the king.36 The function and significance of the seals as representations of

30 Annus 2002, 11 with reference to Westenholz 1975, nos. 82 and 145. For IM 43749 see also
Steinkeller 1977, 51 n. 37.
31 Annus 2002, 85 and 147.
32 Annus 2002, 147.
33 Winter 2001, 2 with reference to Cassin 1960/287, 270‒274 who stresses the “homologous
relationship between the person and the seal.”
34 Yamada 1994, 62 and Annus 2002, 85.
35 SAA 12 no. 71 rev. 7; the seals of gods are found (referred to) on decrees and seem to serve
more of a solemnizing than a legalistic function (Kataja/Whiting, SAA 12, xvi).
36 Winter 2001, 3 with reference to SAA 12 25 rev. 16‒18.
230 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

Fig. 32: Sealings on Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (Parpola and Watanabe 1988, 28).

the authority of their owners was exploited fully in the Sargonid period in Esar-
haddon’s succession treaty for Ashurbanipal, which is sealed with three ver-
sions of Aššur’s seal: the Old Assyrian seal said to be the seal of the City Hall,
the Middle Assyrian seal whose inscription is unfortunately too damaged to
make any conclusive statement about its content,37 and the Neo-Assyrian seal
(fig. 32). This third seal bears an inscription that identifies it as the seal of
destinies:

The Seal of Destinies with [which] Aššur, king of the gods, seals the destinies of the Igigi
and Anunnaki of heaven and underworld, and of mankind. Whatever he seals he will not
alter. Whoever would alter it may Aššur, king of the gods and Mullissu, together with
their children, slay him with their terrible weapons! I am Sennacherib, king of [Assyria],
the prince who reveres you --- whoever erases my inscribed name or discards this, your
Seal of Destinies, erase from the land his name and seed!38

As stated by Andrew George, “the seal’s inscription explicitly reveals the func-
tion of the Seal of Destinies to have been the sealing by Aššur of both human
and divine destinies, as irrevocably decreed by him in his position as king of
the gods.”39 The king’s – or his scholars’ – deliberate decision to apply seals
of Aššur from all periods of Assyrian history anchors Aššur’s authority in deep
history, advancing the view that the origin of Aššur’s dominion over the world
is to be located in primordial times. According to Sumero-Babylonian and As-
syrian tradition, however, this dominion could only be enforced through war-
fare, i.e. the agency of Ningirsu/Ninurta, whose role as warrior god had come
to dominate the notion of political and divine leadership. The divine seals im-

37 SAA 2 no. 6.
38 George 1986, 140 f.
39 George 1986, 141.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 231

printed on Esarhaddon’s succession treaty thus point to the transfer of func-

tions and roles from Ninurta to Aššur.
Along with the early definitions of Ningirsu/Ninurta’s role as the city ad-
ministrator of Enlil, there arose a similar rhetoric revolving around the city
ruler. Both Lugalzagesi of Uruk and Sargon of Akkad designated themselves
as “governor of Enlil” (PA.TEsi-gal-dEn-líl). In subsequent centuries, the title
“governor” (ensi₂(PA-TE-SI)/iššiʾakku) also came to be used by the city rulers
of Lagaš, Old Assyrian Aššur, and Ešnunna, as is discussed in Chapter Three.
Among these city rulers, the old Assyrian Erišum I explicitly connects his ad-
ministrative role as ensi₂ to his relationship with the god Aššur, who was as-
signed the title “king”,40 and this connection was never abandoned in Assyrian
royal ideology.
It was primarily during the second millennium, however, that ancient
scholarship began developing coherent narratives regarding the implications
of the offices of divine and human kingship. The articulation of such narratives
shaped the profile of divinities such as Ninurta – and later Marduk and Aššur –
as well as that of the king, as is illustrated by the mythic narratives of Angim-
dimma, Lugal-e, the Anzû Myth, and Enūma Eliš. It is interesting to note that
the martial role of Ninurta as heroic warrior prevails in the mythic narratives
and that this role subsequently informs official ideological language in Assyria.
Such reciprocal rhetoric explains why the image of human and divine leader-
ship was constantly revised in cult and theology – as it was in royal ideology –
thus allowing them to retain a dynamic quality. The interdependent dynamic
that shaped the notion of either royal or divine leadership during the end of
the second millennium and during the first millennium BCE is key to unravel-
ing the associations of the office of kingship in Assyria. This dynamic is like-
wise essential to a proper understanding of the rise of Ninurta and the subse-
quent assumption of his roles and functions by Marduk, which ultimately con-
tributed to the shaping of the image of Aššur. Finally, it is also key to
comprehending the “emplotment”41 of Assyrian royal inscriptions, i.e. the way
a series of events was endowed with the structural coherence of a plot that
conformed to the mythic model. This chapter focuses on mythic narrative and
its implications for understanding ideology as it is conveyed in the royal in-
scriptions, while Chapter Nine will discuss the implications of the Aššur-Ninur-
ta-King relationship for Assyrian state rituals.

40 RIMA 1, A.0.33.1:35‒36.
41 White 1999, 8.
232 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

6.3.2 Ninurta as Warrior: The Pervasive Rhetoric of the Combat Myth in

Image and Text

Ninurta’s role as the divine warrior fighting the lion-eagle Anzû developed
alongside his executive roles as ‘sealbearer,’ ‘throne-bearer of Enlil,’42 and
‘governor of Enlil,’ and was referenced in theophoric personal names even be-
fore the oldest known written mythic narratives. The cosmogony of the Early
Dynastic Barton Cylinder indicates that the cult of the god Ninurta was already
established in Nippur by circa 2300 BCE, as was the relationship between Enlil,
the chief god of the Sumerian pantheon, and the warrior god. In the cosmogo-
ny of the Barton Cylinder, Ninurta is tasked with restoring the gods’ access to
food and water. The fragmentary blessing of the winds as Ninurta’s helpers
might point to conflict within the larger narrative, particularly because conflict
forms a prominent part of the narrative of the later Sumerian tales about Ninur-
ta like Angimdimma and Lugal-e, which are attested in copies from the first
half of the second millennium BCE. No text copies narrating the heroic deeds
told of Ninurta in Angim and Lugal-e are known from the Early Dynastic Period.
There is, however, an early Semitic literary text from Ebla that does associate
Anzû with Mount Šár-Šár, which is Anzû’s birth place according to the later
Anzû Myth.43 Moreover, Pre-Sargonic theophoric names from the Early Dynastic
period exhibit elements that may well refer to a myth concerning the defeat of
Anzû by Ningirsu/Ninurta: “Ningirsu has spread his arms for Uruʾinimgina like
the Anzû bird (his wings).”44 The cosmogonic significance of the warrior deity
is further evident in the Early Dynastic sculpture of a lion-eagle that is thought
to have guarded the entrance gate of a temple in Ubaid 45 (fig. 33), anticipating
in its figural form Anzû’s role as temple guardian. Similarly, the depiction on
the Stele of the Vultures of Ningirsu holding a net full of enemies and crowned
by the lion-eagle indicates the early importance of an Anzû-like figure and his
association with Ningirsu/Ninurta.46 Indeed, even the image of a lion-eagle on
the club of the Early Dynastic king Mesalim of Kīš (fig. 34) cannot be imagined

42 This title implies judicial power, see Krebernik 2007, 356b § 6.

43 ARET 5, 6//IAS 326+346, Krebernik 1992, 75: C6.2‒6//A4.6‒4.7: … DUGUD AN.ZU HUR.SAG
sa-sa-ru₁₂ i-ra-ad “…. Venerable(?) Anzû, Mount Šaršar is quaking.”
44 Selz 1995, 24.
45 Orthmann, 1975, fig. 97.
46 Orthmann 1975, fig. 90; Steible and Behrens 1982, 120‒145; Cooper 1983a,; Winter 1985 and
1986; L. Heuzey, Decouvertes en Chaldée par Ernest de Sarzec, Second volume (Paris: E. Leroux,
1884‒1912) pls. xxxviii-xlii (copies and drawings showing the position of the text in relation to
the relief); Alster 2003‒2004. For a different interpretation see Selz 2008, 22 who also interprets
the obverse as the ruler in the role of the triumphing divine.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 233

Fig. 33: Early Dynastic Sculpture of Lion-Eagle from Temple of Ubaid Gate
(Orthmann 1975, fig. 97).

Fig. 34: Macehead of Mesalim (Moortgat 1969, pls. 35 and 36).

in its apotropaic function without a prior narrative recording the victory of

Ningirsu/Ninurta over Anzû. Its figural form also anticipates Anzû’s role as a
guardian of the temple as described in the beginning of the Anzû Myth and
depicted on the walls of the Ninurta Temple in Nimrud (fig. 35).
There are a number of combat myths that center on the warrior deity Ning-
irsu/Ninurta, who by his victory over chaos secures his position as administra-
234 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

Fig. 35: Ninurta Temple at Nimrud (Black and Green 1992, fig. 117).

tor of Enlil.47 These myths include the already mentioned Sumerian composi-
tions Angimdimma, in which Ningirsu battles Anzû, and Lugal-e, in which Nin-
urta campaigns against Asakku and the stones. The Old Babylonian and
Standard Babylonian version of the Anzû Myth must also be included among
these myths. In Babylonia, elements of the warrior mythology were integrated
into the theology that shaped the image of the Babylonian chief god Marduk
during the second half of the second millennium. In the Tigridian region,
mythological elements of this kind formed part of the narrative regarding the
battle of the storm god Tišpak of Ešnunna against the snake dragon at the
request of the older god Sîn,48 a mythic tale that is possibly referenced in the
iconography of cylinder seals from the Akkadian period (fig. 36).49 It is interest-
ing to note that the adversary of Tišpak was conceived of as a sea dragon; in

47 Annus 2002, 11 f.
48 Lambert 1984; Wiggermann 1989; Lewis 1996; Sommerfeld 2002.
49 Frankfort, Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region, 1955, pl. 61, no. 649 (= Boehmer
1965, no. 567); Porada 1980, fig. b; Lewis 1996, figs. 3 and 4.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 235

Fig. 36: Tishpak Riding on the mušhuššu-Dragon, Old Akkadian, Eshnunna

(Boehmer 1965, fig. 567).

an Old Akkadian school tablet, Tišpak is called “steward of the Sea” (abarak
Tiʾāmtim).50 In fact, the storm god and the sea dragon are already attested as
counterparts in the combat myth in literary texts, incantations in particular,
from Ebla.51 By the Mari period this mythology was transferred to the storm
god Adad of Aleppo, as is clear from a letter to the king of Mari,52 and it also

50 Westenholz 1974‒77, 102:

MAD I 192
a-ba-ra-ak Steward
ti-àm-tim of Tiamat,
ku-ra-tum a-zum tibi fierce warrior, arise!
d
Tišpak a-ba-ra-ak ti-à〈m〉-t[im] Tišpak, steward of Tiamat
é-zum te-bi i-lum śar […] fierce one, arise! God, king of …
Durand 1993, 43, by contrast, suggests the reading A(b) parrāk ti’āmtim “O Father! You
whose role is to block the Sea.”
51 Fronzaroli 1997.
52 Durand 1993.
236 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

Fig. 37: Terqa Stela of Tukulti-Ninurta II (after Gerlach 2000, 239).

surfaces in connection to Baal at Ugarit.53 Jean-Marie Durand stresses54 that

the Syrian tradition regarding the smiting of the sea-dragon by the weather
god must have informed the narrative of the Babylonian Enūma Eliš, as these
particular agents (weather god and sea) were alien to the narrative of Sumerian
combat myths. Hurrian domination in northern Syria during the second half of
the second millennium BCE facilitated the spread of the imagery of the weather
god smiting the snake dragon. This imagery appears in the iconography of a
stele of purely southern Anatolian style that was found in the city of Terqa on
the middle Euphrates. The stele itself was appropriated by an Assyrian king,55
thus reflecting the recognition of a cultural trope that had the potential to be
incorporated into Assyrian ideological discourse (fig. 37). The battle between a
weather god and a snake dragon subsequently reappears in the medium of text
in a seventh century tablet from Nineveh, which recounts Tišpak’s smiting of
the Labbu,56 and then surfaces for the last time in a seal from late Neo-Assyrian
Tušhan/modern Ziyaret Tepe (fig. 38).
Regardless of regional and temporal variations and differences, the general
plot of the combat myth is straightforward: a warrior deity battles the disrupt-

53 Bourdreuil and Pardee 1993; Smith 1994; Parker 1997, 87‒105; Coogan and Smith 2012, 97 ff.
with a concise survey on the differences and commonalities between the Ugaritic narrative
and Enūma Eliš.
54 Durand 1993, 42.
55 Gerlach 2000.
56 Foster 2005, 581‒882.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 237

Fig. 38: Snake Seal, Ziyaret Tepe ZT 37897

(Courtesy of the Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Expedition).

ive and hostile forces that have unsettled the cosmic balance. In search of a
solution, the gods convene and discuss what action should be taken against
the disruptive forces. In some cases, they first choose representatives of the
older generation of gods to confront the disruptive element. This approach gen-
erally fails, and so either a mother goddess is consulted on whom to choose
next (Serpent Myth), or an elder god persuades a younger god, sometimes his
son, to go into battle (Anzû Myth, Enūma Eliš). The battle is difficult and uncer-
tain, and the younger god sometimes requires assistance in overcoming the
challenge of the adversary. To attain victory, the god must not only apply brutal
force, but also cultural knowledge, either in the form of an incantation (Enūma
Eliš), through the use of the cylinder seal (Labbu Myth), or through the know-
ledge guarded by the god Enki/Ea and the seven sages. By virtue of his ultimate
victory, the young warrior is elevated in the pantheon to a position alongside
the existing chief deity. Toward the end of the second millennium and in the
first millennium BCE, when Assyria and Babylonia developed into large territo-
rial states and empires, the mythological victory of the younger god established
and secured his position as chief god of the pantheon. Consequently, he as-
sumed the mythological role and function of the creator god that had hitherto
been occupied by a representative of the older generation.
I suggest that all of these stories should be understood as variations on
the narrative of the warrior, articulated by various scholarly elites in response
to the increasing martial responsibilities of the rulers of the various Mesopota-
mian urban centers that developed from the fourth through to the third millen-
nium BCE. The rise of regional and supra-regional states prompted the continu-
ous elaboration of these stories, beginning with the battle account itself until
it culminates, through combination with other narratives, in a creation myth
like Enūma Eliš, which merges in a most sophisticated way the combat and
238 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

creation accounts. The narrative of the combat myth was referenced in all me-
dia: texts, i.e. the stories mentioned above, and – as discussed previously – in
monumental art and in the iconography of seals, as well as in ritual (investigat-
ed in Chapter Ten). As media, however, image and ritual never represent a
particular story in full. They are both characterized by their allusive and refer-
ential character, only evoking key moments of the narrative and thus presup-
posing an informed audience already familiar with the relevant cultural know-
ledge.57 By condensing the central message of mythic narratives, the iconic
character of image and ritual was comprehensible even to those who were not
part of the Sumerian, Babylonian, or Assyrian “textual communities.” The in-
vocation of broader narratives is apparent, for instance, in the Club of Mesalim,
which bears the image of the ferocious Anzû. If the viewer was educated in the
stream of tradition, such iconic representations had the potential to trigger the
rich repertoire of cultural knowledge that contributed to the determination of
the viewer’s own identity.
My analysis of the combat myth and its bearing upon the structure and the
content of Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and, as I will discuss at greater
length in Chapter Ten, on the performance of major Neo-Assyrian state rituals
differs from the structuralist approach originally formulated by Vladimir Propp
and others: in addition to emplotment and the particular sequence of action,58
I equally emphasize the types of agents involved. While Propp identifies ac-
tions as functions that can be performed by any character, I suggest that a
particular set of functions is tied to a particular type of agent, even as the
individual embodiments of any one type (Tešub, Ningirsu, Marduk, Aššur, and
the king) are interchangeable. The combination of a particular set of functions
with a type of agent allows particular actions to become established as tropes59
or icons, which can in turn be mediated equally in myth, royal inscription, and
epic, as well as in image and ritual.60 This is not to say that each combat myth
developed a particular unique image of the adversaries, for instance, so that
in the end these remain recognizable for the audience as distinct characters.
Their contours with regard to the plotline, however, were laid out in a way that
the king could step into the role of the divine warrior vanquishing an enemy
who possessed the monstrous features of a mythic adversary.
The third millennium BCE building hymn of Gudea, the king of the power-
ful city state of Lagaš, constitutes an excellent example of the blending of the

57 See the excellent analysis by Sonik in press (b).

58 Propp 1928 [1958].
59 For the notion of tropological discourse see White 1973 and 1999.
60 See my further discussions in Chapters Seven and Nine.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 239

king’s role with that of Ningirsu/Ninurta – at least in textual records. Contem-

poraneous theology endowed the god Ningirsu/Ninurta with legal authority;
in Gudea’s dream, Ningirsu presents himself in the following terms: “In the
Ebabbar, the place where I issue orders, where I am shining like the sun god,
I justly decide, like Ištaran, the lawsuits of my city.”61 The role of Ištaran of
Der in overseeing boundary disputes is previously attested in the Early Dynas-
tic royal inscriptions that deal with the border conflict between Umma and
Lagaš. The ascription of this function to Ningirsu suggests that Gudea’s theolo-
gians/scholars integrated this role into his image as an almighty patron deity
of the city state of Lagaš. Accordingly, Gudea’s building hymn illustrates how
scholars within a local cult could shape the image of the patron deity, which
in turn influenced the image-shaping of the king. Thus, in the praise of the
king that appears toward the end of the building hymn the king adopts the
role of Ningirsu:

He paid attention to the justice (ordained) by [Nanše] and Ni[ngirsu]; he did not expose
the orphan [to the wealthy person] nor did he expose the widow to the [influential] one.
… Day of justice had risen for him, and he set (his) foot on the neck of evil and complaint.
Had he not himself risen for his city from the horizon like the sun god?62

It is precisely in this section of the hymn that the ideological discourse merges
the king’s establishment of civic order inside the controlled territory ordained
by the patron deity Ningirsu with the martial activities performed at the fron-
tiers, which serves to secure the king’s supreme legal authority in both realms.
At the time, this explicit blending of the inner and outer order established
by royal control represented a new step in the of development royal ideological
discourse. Before the advent of royal inscriptions, these roles were depicted
separately in iconography. This is apparent in the visual media, notably in the
Uruk Vase, which depicts the king as the provider for the temple, the Warka
Lion-Hunt Stele, which portrays the king as a hunter protecting his city from
the threatening wilderness beyond it, and in the Prisoner Scenes on various
sealings that show the king in his role as victorious warrior alongside the na-
ked and utterly defeated enemy. By contrast, no image of the ruler performing
justice is known from the Uruk period. It was only during the Lagaš II dynasty,
under Urnanše and Gudea in particular, that the king’s roles as ultimate legal

61 Edzard 1997, Gudea E3/1.7.Cyl.A x 24‒26: é-bar₆-bar₆ ki-á-ág-ge₂₆-gá ki dutu-gim dall-agá ki-
ba dištaran-gim di-iri-gá si ba-ni-íb-sá-e.
62 Edzard 1997, Gudea E3/1.1.7.Cyl B xviiii 4‒13.
240 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

authority and as the warrior who sustains the civic order and the cosmic bal-
ance were combined.
References to warfare are attested in royal inscriptions already in the Early
Dynastic period and persist through to the reign of Urnanše of Lagaš. In their
building inscriptions dedicated to the temple of Ningirsu, however, Urnanše
and his successor Gudea emphasize their roles in fostering long-distance trade
and omit any reference to their military undertakings, thereby establishing a
new ideological model for inscriptions and expanding the existing tropes.63
The peaceful image of the ruler promoted by the textual sources64 is mirrored
by the image of the ruler in visual media, which never represent Gudea as a
victorious warrior.65 This absence of martial imagery has strongly shaped mod-
ern perceptions of the Sumero-Babylonian kings. It also stands in stark con-
trast to the martial tone of the royal inscriptions of the Old Akkadian kings
that preceded the Lagaš II Dynasty, as well as to the tone of the Ur III hymns,
which overlapped with the reign of Gudea at least for the period of Ur-Nam-
ma.66 Later Assyrian tradition also differs in this respect from the model of
Urnanše and Gudea, as the pacification of the world through warfare remained
an essential trope of Assyrian royal ideology.
As such, it is significant to note that when King Gudea maps out the image
of the ideal world order just before the gods are supposed to enter the newly
built temple, he uses a metaphor for controlling the undomesticated sphere.
This mode of royal self-representation can be read as a variant of the king as
hunter theme, which links the trope of the pacification of the world with the
gods’ consequent occupation of their future residence. In this imagery, wild
animals kneel down and lions and other dangerous beasts are made to sleep
peacefully side by side:

63 Bauer, 1998, 450. All the raw materials necessary for the building such as woods, bitumen,
gypsum, copper, gold, silver, and carnelian, which are obtainable only through distant trade
missions (Edzard, Gudea, E3/1.1.CylA xv 6‒xvi 32) and military campaigns, are not explicitly
mentioned. For a discussion of whether the necessary raw materials were obtained by trade
(Edzard, Gudea, 26) or as booty (Cooper), see the review by Cooper 1999b, 699. The earlier
military activities of King Eannatum against Elam already testify to hostile relations with the
East (Bauer 1998, 457), and this conflict continued in later periods. See further the letter writ-
ten to the chief administrator of the temple of Ningirsu at Lagaš in the reign of Uruʾinimgina,
Michalowski 1993, 11 no. 1; K. Volk apud Selz 1991, and Gudea Statue B. For the mirroring of
military activities in the mythical narratives dealing with the conflicts between Sumer and
Elam, see Komoróczy 1982.
64 Selz 1991, 36.
65 Suter 2000, 18.
66 See most recently Wilcke in George 2011, 34 f.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 241

18 … maš-anše níg-zi-gál-eden-na
19 téš-bi-šè gurum//gam-ma-àm67
20 ur-mah pirig ušumgal-eden-na-ka
21 ù-du₁₀ gar-ra-àm

The goats and asses, the creatures of the steppe,

are kneeling together.68
On the lion, panther, and the “dragon of the steppe”
he (Gudea) set sweet sleep.69
(Gudea CylB iv 18‒21)

Gudea’s choice of this particular metaphor points to the cosmological under-

pinnings of royal ideology, which imagined that royal power partakes in the
cosmic order by establishing control beyond the city, penetrating the realm of
disorder and chaos. These cosmological underpinnings – cast in metaphor by
Gudea – continued to dominate ideological discourse for centuries to come.70
At its very end, Gudea’s building hymn harks back to another image of utopia,
located exclusively in the human realm:

eme-níg-hul-da inim ba-da-kúr

níg-érim é-ba im-ma-an-g[i₄]

He changed the words of evil-speaking tongue,

He had everything hostile turned away from the temple.71

Gudea’s enemies, and by extension the enemies of the cosmic order, are char-
acterized by their “evil-speaking tongue,” an expression reminiscent of the rhe-

67 D. O. Edzard translates both verbs gurum/gam-ma-àm and gar-ra-àm as 3rd pl., interpret-
ing the animals as the subject for the participle form ending in -àm. This is not the only exam-
ple for the 3rd pers. sing. used for plural subject; on the function of /-am/ in metaphorical
language, see Black 1998, 16.
68 In contrast to Dietz O. Edzard, I prefer to render the exact meaning of gam =kanāšu, “to
prostrate, to kneel down,” because the same verb may be used with the meaning “to subdue”
the enemy. Although the verbal chains are clearly formed according to the pattern of the 3rd
pers. Singular, this differentiation does not apply in the case of the Stative. In contrast to
Edzard, who prefers to translate the verbal forms with a fientic aspect, I prefer to emphasize
the static aspect as suggested by the grammatical form with the ending /-am/.
69 Edzard, Gudea, CylB iv 18‒21
70 By referring to the three categories of animals ‒ lion, panther, and “dragon of the steppe” ‒
the author conveys the graded distance of the realm of antiorder outside the domestic sphere.
He introduces the categories “normal,” “exotic” and “demonic” through the lion of the steppe,
the panther which is more likely at home in the mountains, and the “dragon of the steppe”
representing the demonic sphere, Pongratz-Leisten 2006, 47 ff.
71 Edzard, Gudea, CylB xviii 2‒3.
242 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

torical device later used by Neo-Assyrian kings to describe the treacherous and
rebellious actions of disloyal subjects. In the royal inscriptions of Neo-Assyrian
kings, expressions such as “untruthful speech” (dabāb lā kitti), “evil-speaking
tongue” (lišān lemuttim), and “to plan evil things” (lemuttu kapādu) are synon-
ymous with “lie” (sarru) or “untruthful speech” (dabāb sarrāti), which were
clearly linked to the violation of a treaty or loyalty oath.72 Although they are
still situated in distinct sections of the narrative, the two passages from Gu-
dea’s building hymn cited above anticipate the equation of hunting and war-
fare that dominates Assyrian royal rhetoric and iconography beginning with
the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115‒1077 BCE) at the end of the Middle Assyrian
period.
Peter Machinist and Hayim Tadmor have stressed the heroic tenor of Assyr-
ian royal inscriptions and warn the modern reader about their questionable
historicity and their use of literary topoi.73 Hayim Tadmor in particular has
highlighted the literary and historiographical convention within Assyrian com-
memorative inscriptions to describe a victory that was achieved at the very
outset of the king’s reign. This convention served to convey the image of the
successful warrior “in conformity with the norms of behavior befitting an As-
syrian monarch.”74 As is discussed in Chapter Nine, I believe that the earliest
attestation of this convention within Tigridian ideological discourse is to be
found in Daduša’s liver model.75 Regarding the Assyrian royal inscriptions
themselves, the first example of a literary presentation of history of this kind
can be attributed to Shalmaneser I (1267‒1234 BCE). Subsequent to his titulary,
Shalmaneser I begins his military account with a temporal clause introduced
by enūma (“when”), referring to a rebellion in Urartu that was suppressed in
just three days:

When (enūma) Aššur, the lord, faithfully chose me to worship him, gave me scepter,
weapon, and staff to (rule) properly the blackheaded people, and granted me the true
crown of lordship: at that time (ina ūmēšuma), at the beginning of my priesthood (ina
šurru šangûtīya), the land Uruaṭri rebelled against me. I prayed to the god Aššur and the
great gods, my lord. I mustered my troops (and) marched up to the mass of their mighty
mountains. I conquered …. I destroyed, burnt, (and) carried off their people and property.
I subdued all the land Uruaṭri in three days at the feet of Aššur, my lord.76

72 Pongratz-Leisten 2002.
73 Machinist 1976, 1978, 2011; Tadmor 1981.
74 Tadmor 1981, 14.
75 See Chapter 9.5.3.
76 RIMA 1, A.0.77.1:22‒41.
 The Interdependency of Myth and Royal Ideology 243

As observed by Tadmor, Shalmaneser I’s son Tukultī-Ninurta I makes use of

the same technique. Tukultī-Ninurta I links his campaign against Babylonia to
his conquest of the western regions, combining the two through the vague term
“then” (ina ūmēšuma). This connection is made in order “to convey the mes-
sage that all the military feats of the king, culminating in the conquest of Baby-
lon, the apex of his achievements, actually took place within the first palû, or
during a period of time very close to the first palû. Obviously, this is not a
chronological arrangement of events.”77 This kind of literary patterning is, of
course, diametrically opposed to chronistic narration, and for several genera-
tions Assyrian kings vacillated between the two. Chronistic narrative and hero-
ic epic narrative were successfully combined for the first time only in the form
of Tiglath-pileser I’s annals.78 As Tadmor notes, Tiglath-pileser I’s prism-in-
scription from Aššur, covering his first five regnal years (palû), “kept to the
literary convention of introducing the feats of the first regnal year by the short
formula ina šurru šangûtīya. The account of each subsequent year was separat-
ed from the preceding account by a short paean of praise set between two
horizontal lines. Though these accounts were not marked as palû’s, in the con-
cluding section of the historical narration a specific reference was made that
all these victories were achieved from ‘the beginning of my reign, from my
accession year to my fifth palû.’”79 The king’s scholars, who wrote the accounts
of great victories that were sometimes said to have been achieved in one day,
were clearly inspired by the epic traditions regarding the legendary kings of
Akkad, which make use of similar motifs. Though written in prose, the text of
Tiglath-pileser I’s prism-inscription from Aššur “is heavily loaded with poetic
similes, hyperbolae, typological numbers, and repetitions characteristic of epic
style. A unique feature of this text is that each campaign is set off by a poetic
device, a rhythmic stanza of praise, and not, as in later annalistic texts by a
date expressed in terms of the respective eponym, or the regnal year.”80
In the course of the subsequent development of Assyrian historiographic
writing, the chronistic approach became firmly entrenched and annalistic writ-
ing established itself, undergoing only modest modification. The chronistic
template was not interrupted until the Sargonid period, when room was made
for the inclusion of ideological statements, prayers, dream reports, and visions,
leading to the progressive blurring of the distinction between heroic poems
and historiographic literature. The following discussion neither focuses on the

77 Tadmor 1981, 15 f.
78 Tadmor 1997, 327.
79 Tadmor 1981, 18.
80 Tadmor 1997, 327 f.
244 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

close relationship between these two genres nor reiterates the excellent analy-
ses of Tadmor, Liverani, and Cifola regarding royal titularies, which reveal the
ideological structure that underlies the royal inscriptions.81 Instead, I investi-
gate the mythological underpinnings of royal inscriptions in order to reveal
their emplotment.

6.4 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to

Ideological Discourse
During the period of the Club of the Great Powers, the trope of the hunt as a
metaphor for the king’s obligation to defeat and control the disruptive el-
ements encroaching upon the civilized order of the state emerged as a central
motif in royal ideological discourse. The image of the hero smiting the lion and
other wild animals dominates the iconography of the royal seal of Sauštatar
towards the end of the fifteenth century BCE. Under the Hittite kings Hattuš-
ili III and Tudhaliya IV (c. 1227‒1209 BCE), the hunt became part of a ritual
event performed in honor of the stag god, tutelary god of the king.82 The combi-
nation of hunt and cultic was also integrated into Hittite monumental art, ap-
pearing in “the upper register of the Sphinx Gate’s western tower at Alaça Höy-
ük.”83 Such scenes remain an essential theme in later Syro-Anatolian monu-
mental iconography, as is demonstrated by the Neo-Hittite evidence at
Carchemish, and were also incorporated into Assyrian palatial imagery.
Nearly concomitantly with the Hittite ideological discourse during the later
imperial period the trope of the hunt emerges equally in Assyria. The stag god,
of course, does not feature in Assyrian culture. Nevertheless, the stag itself
does figure in Middle Assyrian glyptic imagery. While the stag is attested also
in the early imagery of Southern Mesopotamia,84 its concurrency in Hittite and
Middle Assyrian imagery is striking and attests to the interactive dynamics be-
tween the two powers. Middle Assyrian glyptic iconography abounds in leap-
ing stags and scenes portraying the hero attacking lion-griffins, ibexes, the
wild bull, or the moufflon. One Middle Assyrian seal is particularly telling in
its combination of combat, represented by a lion-griffin attacking a wild bull,
with reverence for the gods, represented through the depiction of a kneeling

81 Tadmor 1981; Liverani 1981; Cifola 1995 and 2004.

82 Hawkins 2006.
83 Gilibert 2011, 118; Taracha 2011.
84 For references to the early attestations see Heimpel
 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 245

Fig. 39: MA seal depicting lion-griffin attacking a wild bull, with the depiction of a kneeling
worshipper under an altar crowned by the winged sun disk (Morgan Library and Museum
# 598 (Courtesy Morgan Library and Museum).

worshipper under an altar crowned by the solar winged disk (Fig. 39).85 This
combination explicitly signals the cosmic implications of the hunt as part of
the king’s obligations towards the gods, which are referenced in the depiction
of the cultic scene. As such, the seal evokes the iconography of Sauštatar’s
royal seal and bespeaks the intense interaction between Mitanni, Hatti, and
Assyria in the creation of their respective discourses on royal ideology and to
match each other’s claims.
A letter from the Hittite king Hattušili III to his Babylonian counterpart
Kadašman-Enlil II suggests that the hunt was considered an essential signifier
for maturing into manhood within Hittite royal ideology: “I have heard that
my brother has turned into a man and goes hunting” (KBo 1, 10 rev. 49).86
Already during the Ur III period Šulgi extols his own protection of his subjects
and their herds from the threat of the lion – the apex predator – and the wild
bull, animals that endangered the life and livelihood of pastoralists. By hunt-
ing wild animals with his bow and stabbing lions with his spear, Šulgi exposed
himself to risk and danger in order to ensure the wellbeing of his subjects.
Despite the importance of the hunt in Šulgi’s self-praise, it appears that the
hunt was only ritualized in the Syro-Anatolian milieu and that its cosmic di-

85 Pierpont Morgan no. 598.

86 Quoted after Heimpel 1976‒1980, 234.
246 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

Fig. 40: Kings Gate Carchemish Heraldic Stag Relief (after Gilibert 2011, 176, fig. 54).

mensions and implications for kingship were then fully articulated in Assyria,
prompting the rise of this trope in Assyrian royal ideological discourse toward
the end of the Middle Assyrian period. In the royal inscriptions of Tiglath-Piles-
er I, the trope of the hunt as an icon of civilization was regarded as a direct
parallel to warfare: the hunt constituted a perpetual struggle against chaos.
Later Neo-Hittite iconography in the reliefs of the King’s Gate at Carchemish
(figs. 40 and 41) equates the hunt with warfare,87 representing a further prod-
uct of the intercultural dynamics between Assyria and the Syro-Anatolian hori-
zon. When the notion of the hunt itself entered Assyrian ideological discourse,
it was reformulated and reconceptualized within the framework of the king’s
mythologization as Ninurta.

87 Gilibert 2011.
 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 247

Fig. 41: Kings Gate Carchemish Hunter Relief (after Gilibert 201, 177, fig. 55).

In the Middle Assyrian period it is possible to discern the reemergence of

Assyrian textual production after the centuries of disintegration and Mitannian
overlordship that followed the reign of Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE). Renas-
cent Assyrian textual production is manifest during the reign of Adad-nīrārī I
(1295‒1264 BCE) in the form of the first Assyrian heroic poem, the Adad-nīrārī I
Epic.88 Middle Assyrian textual production experienced a climax under Tukul-
tī-Ninurta I, who oversaw the composition of the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic following
his sack of Babylon, as well as the composition of several other bilingual liter-
ary works, including his historical prayers to Aššur.89 Under Tiglath-Pileser I,
lively scribal activity continued and “traditional literary works were copied and
original compositions were produced, both being collected in a royal library.”90
The colophons of these texts reveal the involvement of a body of professionals

88 The text is preserved in several fragments: KAR 260 and KAH 2, 143. Another fragment
(Rm 293), a duplicate, is published in AfO 17, 1954‒56, p. 369. Two further duplicates have
been published by Weidner, AfO 20, 19 63, 113‒115.
89 See Chapter 3.5.3.1.
90 Hurowitz and Westenholz 1990, 1. Whether the scholars produced these texts for the royal
library of Tiglath-Pileser I, as originally suggested by Weidner 1952–53, or for their own refer-
ence libraries, as discussed by Lambert 1976, 85 n. 2, remains unclear and is not relevant to
the present discussion.
248 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

with the titles ‘diviner’ (bārû), ‘chief diviner’ (rab bārê), ‘diviner of the king’
(bārî šarri), ‘scribe’ (ṭupšarru), and ‘exorcist’ (mašmaššu),91 which is essentially
the same group of experts that is attested in the first millennium correspon-
dence of the late Sargonid kings. Several texts are said to be copies of originals
from Nippur, Babylon, Akkad, and Aššur, demonstrating again the embedded-
ness of these scholars in a broader cultural network of textual productivity.
The Middle Assyrian catalogue of songs (Liederkatalog KAR 158) contains
twelve Akkadian royal hymns (zamar šarri), five heroic songs (qurdu), and two
gangiṭṭu-songs with the titles “trampler of the corners (of the world), who
throws all the cities into confusion,”92 and “let me sing of the strong god, the
royal one, the heroic god”93 (KAR 158 rev. iii 13‒14).94 These songs were part
of the intense literary production of the Middle Assyrian period and attest to
the recurrent ceremonial celebration of the king.95 The indebtedness of Middle
Assyrian textual production to Babylonian tradition is indicated by the pres-
ence of Middle Babylonian texts that were either brought to Aššur or written
in Aššur among those found in Assyria. Assyrian indebtedness to Babylonia is
further evident in the fact that the Assyrian chronicles, epic literature, and
royal inscriptions of the Middle Assyrian period are all written in the Standard
Babylonian literary dialect and make use of its narrative language, motifs, and
topoi regarding the experience of the king and his accomplishments. Indeed,
Tukultī-Ninurta I’s reference to his pillaging of Babylonian libraries and the
presence of Babylonian scholars at Aššur both demonstrate explicitly the pro-
cess of Assyrian borrowing from Babylonia. Although Assyrian textual produc-
tion drew on Babylonian tradition, Middle Assyrian texts nevertheless display
a typically Assyrian view of the institution of kingship, which is particularly
evident in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic.
Text corpora like the Middle Assyrian Laws and the Harem Edicts incorpo-
rate material from the reign of Aššur-uballiṭ I (1353‒1318 BCE), making clear
that Middle Assyrian scribal activity can be traced to the very beginning of
Assyria’s development into a territorial state and to the very moment of its
arrival on the international scene. In this light, Middle Assyrian cultural pro-
duction can be seen as a reflection of the aspirations of Assyria’s kings to join
the Club of the Great Powers and to be accepted as equals by their royal peers –
not just as politically and militarily, but also culturally. The extent of Assyria’s

91 Pedersén 1985, 33.

92 dāʾiš tubqāti āšu kalu ālāni.
93 gašra ila šarra luzzamur ila dapna.
94 Black 1983, 25.
95 Pongratz-Leisten 2001.
 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 249

cultural ambition is apparent in the fact that Middle Assyrian Aššur has so far
yielded the most comprehensive corpus of lexical texts, including thematic
lists, acrographic lists, and lists like Nabnītu, Erimhuš, the Emesal Vocabulary,
and Grammatical Lists.96 Middle Assyrian royal inscriptions were frequently
written with archaizing Babylonian sign forms, and scribes often stressed the
Babylonian origin of their texts. Niek Veldhuis observes that lexical texts like
the explanatory list Ea use archaizing Babylonian sign forms to designate en-
tries in the list but Assyrian sign forms for the accompanying explanatory text.
This writing style is thus part of the effort to emulate Babylonian cultural prac-
tice in order to bolster the Assyrian claim to cultural prestige.97
Most of these various text genres center on the figure of the king and are
dominated by a heroic world view. As the preferred object of the literarizing
process, the king was represented as the pivot between political, situation-
bound reality, and literary, mythic, and situation-abstract fiction. The Middle
Assyrian heroic poems revive the tradition of the Ur III royal hymns98 and are
literarily interdependent with the royal inscriptions. This literary interdepend-
ence is evident not only in the fact that both the Middle Assyrian heroic poems
and the royal inscriptions are written in the Standard Babylonian dialect, but
also in their use of rare and unusual words, which is first attested in the heroic
poems and subsequently appears in the royal inscriptions.99 Moreover, the roy-
al narratives concerning the military accomplishments of particular kings were
refashioned in the Middle Assyrian period into an annalistic form that present-
ed campaigns individually and in chronological order, where previously such
commemorative inscriptions had been organized geographically.100 It is also
from this period that there is evidence for the rewriting of annals at certain
intervals. The earliest edition of Tiglath-Pileser I’s annals, composed after the
fifth year of his reign, marks a watershed in the development of historiographic
writing because the text is pervaded by literary features known from the leg-
ends of the Kings of Akkad.101 In Tiglath-Pileser I’s annals, for example, victo-
ries are said to have been achieved within a short time span (see the Great
Revolt Against Narām-Sîn for comparison), while the king himself is depicted

96 Veldhus 2012, 13 f.
97 Veldhuis 2012, 16.
98 Machinist 1976, 466.
99 Hurowitz and Westenholz 1990, 14.
100 Grayson 1980, 152‒155: the typical arrangement of Assyrian commemorative inscriptions
is: royal name, titulary, and genealogy, followed by the military report and the building ac-
count, and concluded by blessing and curse formulas.
101 Westenholz 1997.
250 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

in nearly divine terms like in the Tukultī-Ninurta I Epic and the text is dominat-
ed by a heroic-epic tenor.102
Myth functions as the referential system determining the narrative struc-
ture of Tiglath-Pileser I’s (1115‒1077 BCE) royal inscriptions. In these royal in-
scriptions, the hunt – framed in mythic icons evoking the life-threatening mo-
ment of direct encounter with the monstrous – appears in narrative form,
which is paralleled by the military account. As a re-actualization of the master
narrative of the combat myth, the hunt is historicized, concretizing the catego-
ry of beast that the king encounters, as well as the moment in time and the
geographic space in which he does so. Although it triggers the cultural memory
of the primordial battle against disruptive forces, the hunt simultaneously con-
tinues to figure as an icon that identifies the cosmic implications of the king’s
battle against his enemies, which is described in the parallel account of the
king’s military campaigns. The intimate relationship between the hunt and the
military account in the royal inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I underlines the
fluid nature of the boundaries between myth and “historical” narrative.
Further, Tiglath-Pileser I’s annals make the juxtaposition of war and the
hunt explicit by combining the extensive report of the king’s military cam-
paigns over the course of several years with a narrative about the king’s quali-
ties as a hunter. Although the king’s hunting expeditions were probably staged
at various occasions during his campaigns, Tiglath-Pileser I’s annals present
them in one coherent section. The annals organize military events according
to the regnal year in which they took place, but the narrative of the various
hunting expeditions is arranged according to geographical location. This ar-
rangement anticipates the system by which Ashurbanipal structures the mili-
tary accounts in his royal inscriptions several centuries later. The animals
killed by the king represent the various regions of the realm of chaos, which
are brought under the control of the god Aššur through the efforts of the king.
Chief among these animals are the wild bull of the steppe and the lions of the
mountains:

vi 55‒57) Tiglath-Pileser, valiant man, armed with the unrivalled bow, expert in the
hunt.
vi 58‒69) The gods Ninurta and Nergal gave me their fierce weapons and their exalted
bow for my lordly arms. By the command of the god Ninurta, who loves me, with my
strong bow, iron arrow-heads, and sharp arrows, I slew four extraordinary strong wild
virile bulls in the desert, in the land Mittani, and at the city Araziqu which is before the
land Hatti. I brought their hides and horns to my city Aššur.

102 Hurowitz and Westenholz 1990, 1.

 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 251

vi 70‒75) I killed the strong bull elephants in the land Harran and the region of the River
Hābūr (and) four live elephants I captured. I brought the hides and tusks (of the dead
elephants) with the live elephants to my city Aššur.

Vi 76‒84) By the command of the god Ninurta, who loves me, I killed on foot 120 lions
with my wildly outstanding assault. In addition, 800 lions I felled from my light chariot.
I have brought down every kind of wild beast and winged bird of the heavens whenever
I have shot an arrow.103

The expansion of his control into Lebanon and toward the Mediterranean
coastline prompted Tiglath-Pileser I to include the bull elephant of the region
of Harran and the Hābūr River among the animals he hunted. When Tiglath-
Pileser I reached the sea, he made a point of hunting the ‘horse of the sea’
(nāhiru):

16‒25 I marched to Mount Lebanon. I cut down (and) carried off cedar beams for the
temple of the gods Anu and Adad, the great gods, my lords. I continued to the land
Amurru (and) conquered the entire land Amurru. I received tribute from the lands Byblos,
Sidon, (and) Arvad. I rode in boats of the people of Arvad (and) travelled successfully a
distance of three double hours from the city of Arvad, an island, to the city Ṣamuru which
is in the land Amurru. I killed at sea a nāhiru, which is called a sea-horse.104

Securing access to the Mediterranean Sea represented a major military triumph

for Tiglath-Pileser I, adding a novel dimension to the territories under Assyrian
control. Tiglath-Pileser I’s inscription celebrates this achievement through its
inclusion of the ceremonial hunt of the sea-horse, which reflects the cosmic
overtones of world dominion. The cosmic implications of Tiglath-Pileser I’s
conquest of the sea and the mountains are also conveyed visually by the manu-
facture of replicas of the sea-horses and their stationing at the gates of the
royal palace as ‘symbols of the subjugated wilderness.’105 Following the mili-
tary reports and the hunting accounts, Tiglath-Pileser I adds a lengthy self-
praise that portrays him as the benefactor of his land and his people, another
innovation that combines war and the hunt as prerequisites for the exercise
of royal power. The overall effect of Tiglath-Pileser I’s inscription is to argue
powerfully that the king met all the expectations and obligations incumbent
on the occupant of the royal office.
War and the hunt are also bound together by the common terminology
used to describe them: “(Tiglath-Pileser), whose weapons the god Aššur has

103 RIMA 2, A.0.87.1: vi 55‒84.

104 RIMA 2, A.0.78.3: 16‒25.
105 RIMA 2, A.0.78.4: 67‒71; Annus 2001, 115; Lundström 2012.
252 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

sharpened,”106 “I strike the wicked like the fierce dagger,”107 and “I overpower
like the net, I enclose like the trap.”108 The parallel treatment of war and the
hunt in the annals of Tiglath-Pileser I and in those of later Neo-Assyrian kings
regarding form, structure, and language reveals their common meaning and
function, so that the killing of the lion and other wild animals signified nothing
less than the defeat of Assyria’s enemies and the attendant expansion of Aš-
šur’s control over the world.109 These tropes are interspersed with historical
and geographical details, but their literary composition and the omission of
any mention of royal defeat indicate that the annals were part of an ideal-
biographical royal discourse.
The Hunter, a “short, epic-style poem about a campaign of an Assyrian
king against mountain peoples, cast in a metaphor of a hunter stalking wild
game,”110 belongs to the context of the reshaping of royal inscriptions and the
creation of historicizing poetry. The text was found in the Aššur temple as part
of an excerpt tablet or school exercise that also contained the beginning of
Ištar’s Descent. It was originally assigned to Tiglath-Pileser I by its editor Erich
Ebeling,111 who identified a direct intertextual relationship between The Hunter
and Tiglath-Pileser I’s military report of his conquest of Murattaš. This attribu-
tion has not been widely accepted, and scholars like Borger have, by contrast,
classified The Hunter as a Neo-Assyrian text written in archaizing style.112 Only
Victor Hurowitz and Joan Goodnick Westenholz,113 followed by Benjamin Fos-
ter,114 have argued that The Hunter should be dated to Tiglath-Pileser I as Ebel-
ing suggested. Indeed, until recently Dietz Otto Edzard, based on Stefan Maul’s
observations regarding the paleography of the text, classified The Hunter as a
Neo-Assyrian parody of a military report.115 With all due respect to these schol-
ars, the dating proposed by Ebeling seems to me best suited to the paleography
and orthography of the text, a view reinforced by The Hunter’s parallels with
the poem LKA 63.116 It also makes more sense to me to classify the text as a
fable than as a parody.

106 RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 col. i 36‒37: ša da-šur GIŠ.TUKUL.MEŠ-šu ú-šá-hi-lu.

107 Adad-nirari II, RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:19 GIM GÍR šal-ba-be ú-ra-ṣa-pa.
108 Adad-nirari II, RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:21 [ki-m]a šu-uš-kal-li a-sa-hap GIM hu-ha-ri a-kàt-tam.
109 Maul 1995, 399 and 2000; Machinist 1993, 83.
110 Foster 2005, 336‒37.
111 Ebeling 1949.
112 Borger 1964, 112; AHw 3, 1124; referencing Borger, Grayson 1976, 3 n. 15 seems to accept
Borger’s dating, as he does not include this text under Tiglath-Pileser I.
113 Hurowitz and Westenholz 1990.
114 Foster 2005, 336.
115 Edzard 2004.
116 See my edition in the Appendix.
 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 253

In light of The Hunter’s glorifying character and its praise of the god Aššur,
the text should be located in the larger framework of Assyrian historicizing
poetry and heroic poems (qurdu). The Hunter is nevertheless unique because
of its allegorical or parabolic character, which has no clear parallel in Mesopo-
tamian literature. The hero of the narrative remains anonymous throughout,
and is only referred to with the epitheton ornans as the ‘hunter’ (bajjāru). As
in the royal inscriptions, the introductory section of The Hunter praises the
king as a victorious warrior whose military endeavors enjoy the support of the
gods. In the text, the king plans a military campaign, but his adversaries are
depicted as mountain donkeys rather than human beings. As noted by Ebeling,
this curious feature turns the poem into an allegorical fable.117 Persuaded that
they are protected by the inaccessible wilderness of the mountains, a motif
reminiscent of the Sargon tale King of Battle,118 the mountain donkeys feel
strong enough to defend themselves. In line with other legendary literature,
the hunter consults the gods by means of extispicy regarding the right moment
for his attack and subsequently sets out on campaign with his soldiers and
chariots. Following a one day march covering a distance that would normally
take three days to traverse, the hunter reaches the enemy land and puts it to
the torch before sunrise. The inhabitants of the mountain region – now human
in nature – are all killed, and not even pregnant women and children are
spared. The poem concludes with praise for the god Aššur:

LKA 62
 1 [Who curbs] foes, trampler of his enemies,
 2 [Who hunts] mountain donkeys, who startles the creatures of the steppe,
 3 [The Hunter]: Aššur is his ally, Adad is his help,
 4 Ninurta, vanguard of the gods, [go]es before him.
 5 The Hunter plans battle against the donkeys,
 6 He sharpens(?) his dagger to cut short their lives.
 7 The donkeys hear that (but continue) to gambol around,
 8 The Hunter’s terror had not yet come down upon them.
 9 They counter the (potential) confusion (of battle with the question): “Whoever
came near us?
10 Who is it, not having seen who we are, who tries to frighten our assembly?
11 We are to be neglected (=protected by) the closed circle of the high mountains,
12 Because our dwelling place lies within the enclosure of the mountains.
13 May the wind blow the Hunter’s snare away,
14 May the shootings of his bow not come to reach us who are assembled (in the
mountains).”

117 Ebeling 1949, 33.

118 Westenholz 1997, 102‒139.
254 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

15 The Hunter heard the chatter of the mountain beasts, (and thought)
16 “They are deprived of their reasoning, their words are troubled,
17 Their tendon is like chaff, the men are like a newborn.”
18 To the warriors who will open (new paths) on the mountain peaks, he says:
19 “let us go and bring massacre upon the mountain beasts,
20 With our sharpened weapon let us shed their blood.”
21 He performed an extispicy for his appointed time,
22 He raged like Adad (and like) Šamaš he was hitching up his chariotry.

23 A journey of three days he marched [in one].

24 Even without sunshine a fiery heat was among them,
25 He slashed the wombs of the pregnant, blinded the babies,
26 He cut the throats of the strong ones among them,
27 The smoke of their land barred their land.
28 Whatever land is disloyal to Aššur will turn into wasteland.
29 Let me sing of the mighty victory of Aššur, who goes out into combat,
30 and repeatedly achieves victory over the troops of the entire world.
31 Let the first one hear and te[ll it] to the later ones!119

Like Tiglath-Pileser I’s annals and consistent with northern Mesopotamian tra-
dition, The Hunter limits the concept of the homogeneity and congruence of
human-divine action to the god Aššur and the Storm God Adad; Ninurta is
included only as the model for the king. In the annals, however, divine agency
in the hunting reports centers on Aššur and Ninurta. Two examples from the
annals suffice to illustrate this point:

In addition I got control of (and) formed herds of (vii 5) naiālu deer, aiālu-deer, gazelles,
(and) ibex which the gods Aššur and Ninurta, the gods who love me, had given me in the
course of the hunt in high mountain ranges. I (vii 11) numbered them like flocks of sheep,
I sacrificed yearly to the god Aššur, my lord, the young born to them as voluntary offer-
ings together with my pure sacrifices.120

Tiglath-Pileser, exalted prince, the one whom the gods Aššur and Ninurta have continual-
ly guided wherever he wished (to go) and who pursued each and every one of the enemies
of the god Aššur and laid low all the rebellious.121

Beginning with Tiglath-Pileser I, Assyrian royal inscriptions acquire their typi-

cal structure, in which the king’s titulary and genealogy is followed by military
accounts (and often a hunting account), a building account, and a blessing
and curse section focusing on the protection of the king’s name and of the
inscription itself.

119 See Appendix 1 for the Assyrian text and commentary.

120 RIMA 2, A.0.87.1: col. vii 4‒16.
121 RIMA 2, A.0.87.1: col. vii 36‒41.
 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 255

The White Obelisk (fig. 42), found in 1853 by Hormuzd Rassam “between
the outer court of Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh and the Ishtar Temple,”122
is a key piece of evidence linking the royal inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I and
their imagery of war and hunt to the historical narrative of the Neo-Assyrian
period as represented in the ninth century reliefs of Aššurnaṣirpal II. There has
been some scholarly controversy regarding the dating of the obelisk,123 but
recently Holly Pittman, building on the work of Julian Reade, has advanced
convincing arguments for attributing the obelisk to the reign of Aššurnaṣirpal I
(1049‒1031 BCE).124 Except for two hymns dedicated to the goddess Ištar, very
little is known of Aššurnaṣirpal I; it is therefore all the more crucial to include
the White Obelisk in any discussion of the development of Assyrian ideological
discourse during the transition from the Middle Assyrian to the Neo-Assyrian
period. The obelisk is decorated with eight registers on all four sides, represent-
ing scenes of warfare, hunting, tribute processions, and ceremonial and ritual
performances. Of interest to our discussion of the parallelism of warfare and
hunt is the fact that the scenes dedicated to these subjects appear in the upper-
most and lowermost registers of the obelisk, effectively framing the tribute
scenes and the ritual scenes. This arrangement suggests the same understand-
ing of the function of war and hunt in establishing cosmic order that is evident
in texts from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I. Additionally, the fragmentary hymn
celebrating Aššurnaṣirpal I as a hunter supports the dating of the White Obelisk
to his reign.125 Another intriguing aspect of this monument is that its epigraph
mentions the bīt nathi, which, if related to the Hittite nathi – originally a Hurri-
an loanword denoting a ceremonial bed 126 – perfectly fits the content of the
Assyrian ritual for Ištar as known from its Sargonid period versions.127
The White Obelisk can be considered the precursor of the ceremonial repre-
sentations of war and hunt that appear in the celebrated reliefs of Aššurnaṣir-
pal II’s throne room in his North-West Palace at Nimrud, in the bronze bands
of the Balawat Gates of Shalmaneser III, and in the reliefs of Ashurbanipal’s
North and South-West Palaces at Nineveh. Natalie May interprets these images
as depictions of the Assyrian War Ritual known from the ritual text published
by Karlheinz Deller,128 implying an analogy between text and image. I prefer

122 Reade 1975, 143.

123 For an overview of the debate see Sollberger 1974, 231‒232 and Reade 1975, 129‒133.
124 Pittman 1996.
125 Frahm 2009b, no. 77.
126 Explanation by David Hawkins, see Sollberger 1974, 237 f.
127 See Chapter 10.6.
128 Deller 1992. May 2012.
256 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

Fig. 42: White Obelisk (after Reade 1975, fig. 1).

to read these images as complex expressions of the intermediality between

image, ritual, and text, encompassing myth and royal inscriptions. This read-
ing would allow for both the suspension of time and space and for the repre-
 The King as Hunter: The Middle Assyrian Contribution to Ideological Discourse 257

Fig. 43: Neo-Assyrian Stamp Seal (after Kühne 1997, 211, fig. 31).

Fig. 44: Ashurbanipal Stabbing the Lion (Photo Pongratz-Leisten, Courtesy British Museum).
258 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

sentation of historical events (see my discussion in Chapters 9.6 and Chap-

ter 10.4). Beginning with the reign of Shalmaneser III (858‒824 BCE), the image
of the king stabbing the lion became the iconic representation of Assyrian king-
ship as represented on the royal stamp seal (fig. 43),129 and this image was
replicated in Ashurbanipal’s hunting scenes (fig. 44).

6.5 The Interface between Myth and Royal Inscriptions

The cosmic dimensions of the king’s military campaigns and their persistence
in Assyrian ideological discourse have been discussed at great length in Assyri-
ological literature.130 My intention here is to reveal the mythologizing tendency
of the royal inscriptions, which is not only crucial for understanding ancient
historicizing literature but also provides a deeper insight into the Assyrian
state rituals that reactualized Ninurta’s role annually, as is discussed later in
this book.
Several Old Babylonian period sites have yielded versions of the Sumerian
poems Lugal-e, which describes Ningirsu’s victory over the Asakku-monster
and his army of stone allies, and Angimdimma, the story of Ninurta’s return to
Ekur (the temple of his father) after his victorious battle against the lion-eagle
Anzû. An Old Babylonian version of the Anzû Myth was also in circulation,
the first millennium version of which encompasses three tablets and narrates
Ninurta’s heroic killing of the lion-eagle Anzû. The Old Babylonian version of
the Anzû Myth anthropomorphizes one of Ninurta’s weapons, depicting it as a
messenger moving between Ninurta in the battlefield and the god Ea, who
helps Ninurta succeed with the help of his magic.
The mythology of the god Ningirsu/Ninurta and its adaptation in historiog-
raphy reflects a conception of warfare that regards this activity as a perpetual
act of creation.131 Indeed, the motif of the Chaoskampf is the authoritative “ge-
notext”132 that generates the various mythic “hypotexts” that inform Assyrian
royal inscriptions; where they describe military activities, Assyrian royal in-
scriptions are to be regarded as “hypertexts”133 ultimately derived from the
Chaoskampf motif itself. In this capacity, the Chaoskampf motif functions as

129 Maul 1995b, 395.

130 Lambert 1986; Maul 1991, 1995b, 1999, 2000; Annus 2002.
131 Otto 1999.
132 Burkert 1979, 2 f.
133 For the relationship between hypotext (A) and hypertext (B) see Genette 1997.
 The Interface between Myth and Royal Inscriptions 259

“the ultimate sanction of all royal activity.”134 In contrast to the royal inscrip-
tions, from the second millennium BCE onward Ninurta mythology focuses on
Ninurta’s martial role to the detriment of his administrative and agricultural
functions. In the Anzû Myth, Ea encourages Ninurta at the moment of crisis.
Ea’s speech stresses the status and rank of the leader figure, in this case the
divine Enlil, as well as the importance of the proper operation of the cult cen-
ters spread throughout the four regions of the world. Hierarchical leadership
and cult centers are represented as icons of control over the universe, high-
lighting the central role that the conquest of chaos played in the cosmic
scheme:

‘Kill him, conquer Anzû!

‘Let the winds bear off his wing feathers as glad tidings
‘To the temple Ekur, to your father Enlil.
‘Flood and bring mayhem to the mountain meadows,
‘Kill wicked Anzû!
‘Let authority return [to the father] who begot you.
‘Let there be daises to be built,
‘Establish your holy places in the four world regions,
‘[Let] your holy places come into Ekur.
‘Show yourself mighty be[fore the gods],
For your name shall be ‘Mighty One.’135

With its motifs of conquest, the (re-)establishment of the cosmic order by re-
anchoring authority with the god Enlil, the building of temples, and the invo-
cation of the name of the mighty warrior god, this passage anticipates the em-
plotment of the mythic narrative itself – qualifying it as a “hypotext” or “phe-
notext” of the original “genotext” of the combat myth136 – and this emplotment
is evident in Assyrian royal inscriptions from Tiglath-pileser I onward. More-
over, the passage expresses concisely the axiom of Tukultī-Ninurta I, as stated
in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic: “Peace cannot be made without conflict.”137 This
principle governs all combat myths and informs first Assyrian heroic epic lit-
erature and then Assyrian royal inscriptions.

134 Wyatt 1998, 844 f.

135 After Foster 2005, 572, Anzu iii 114‒124.
136 Note the distinction made by Hans Poser 1979 between “myth” as a master narrative or
referential system (my terms) and “myths” as phenotexts. Malinowski’s concept of the “charter
myth” also belongs here Malinowski 1926, as does Genette’s distinction between “hypotext”
and “hypertexts”, Genette 1997.
137 Machinist 1978a,Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, A iii 15′, ul iššakan salīmu balu mithuṣu; Foster
2005, 306.
260 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

It is not surprising that Middle and Neo-Assyrian copies of the Anzû Myth
have been recovered from multiple sites in the Assyrian empire. Bilingual
(Sumero-Akkadian) copies of the Sumerian literary compositions Angim and
Lugal-e appear in Assyria during the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I; these texts were
again recopied much later in Nineveh during the Sargonid period.138 This evi-
dence highlights the interdependence between myth and royal inscriptions,
which accounts for the king’s assumption of a cosmogonic role in his emula-
tion of Ninurta. The claim to universal control in the Anzû Myth passage quoted
above perfectly encapsulates Neo-Assyrian royal ideology: any royal battle was
understood as a re-actualization of Ninurta’s battle against Asakku or Anzû or
of Marduk’s battle against Tiamat.139 The enemies of the Assyrian king as-
sumed the role of the threatening forces confronted by Ninurta in his divine
battle.140 As such, the historicity of the enemy was ultimately of little relevance
to the ancient historian.
The king’s appropriation of Ninurta’s weapons was an important part of
the re-actualization of Ninurta’s role. Among these weapons are the flood (Su-
merian: a.ma.uru₅; Akkadian abūbu), the net (Sumerian: šuškal; Akkadian:
šuškallu), and the sandstorm (ašamšatu), all of which are attested as weapons
of Tukultī-Ninurta I. From Tukultī-Ninurta I onward, “deluge of the battle”
(abūb tamhari) and “like the flood” (abūbiš) became standard epithets of the
Assyrian king. Ninurta’s warrior aspect was also important to the shaping of
notions of divine kingship more broadly, as is indicated by the fact that Ninur-
ta’s weapons šár-ur₄ and šár-gaz, his personified helpers in Sumerian tradi-
tion,141 were adopted by Marduk in the first millennium creation epic Enūma
Eliš.142 The association of such rhetoric with the supreme god Marduk in turn
influenced the mythologizing language of Esarhaddon’s report on his military
campaign against Egypt, where he claims that both of these weapons preceded
him into the enemy land.143 As a notion, then, ideal rulership was continuously
negotiated between myth and royal inscriptions.

138 Cooper 1971, 7. Note that the bilinguals from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh are closer
to the Old Babylonian tradition in terms of spelling and variants than to the Middle Assyrian
texts, a phenomenon that Rubio tentatively links with Ashurbanipal’s conquest of Nippur,
where the Middle Babylonian tradition preserved Old Babylonian writing practice, see Rubio
2009, 44 f.
139 Maul 1999, 210.
140 Maul 1999, 211.
141 Annus 2001; Edzard, Gudea StatB v 37‒44, and vi 21‒44; see also Suter 2000, 189 and
284 ff.
142 Maul 1999, 210‒211. For further examples see Annus, 2002, 99.
143 Borger 1967, 65, Nin. E. col. ii 6‒13.
 The Interface between Myth and Royal Inscriptions 261

Ninurta and the king performed similar functions in their defense of the
political and cosmic order,144 as is further apparent in the divine epithets origi-
nally associated with the warrior god and ultimately applied to the king. Aššur-
naṣirpal II’s inscription for the Ninurta temple in Nimrud, which begins with
a hymn to Ninurta and subsequently praises the king himself, is a prime exam-
ple of this development. The hymn to Ninurta reveals that none of the tropes
previously developed in Mesopotamian tradition escaped the cultural memory
of the king’s scholars, who combined all of these motifs into a persuasive di-
vine image that provided the model for the perfect king:

I 1‒9a) To the god Ninurta, the strong, the almighty, the exalted, foremost among the
gods, the splendid (and) perfect warrior whose attack in battle is unequalled, the eldest
son who commands battle (skills), offspring of the god Nudimmud, warrior of the Igigu
gods, the capable, prince of the gods, offspring of Ekur, the one who holds the bond of
heaven and underworld, the one who opens springs, the one who walks the wide under-
world, the god without whom no decisions are taken in heaven and underworld, the swift,
the ferocious, the one whose command is unalterable, foremost in the (four) quarters, the
one who gives scepter and (power of) decision to all cities, the stern canal-inspector
(I 5) whose utterance cannot be altered, extensively capable, sage of the gods (ABGAL
DINGIRmeš), the noble, the god Utulu, lord of lords, into whose hands is entrusted the
circumference of heaven and underworld, king of battle, the hero who rejoices in battles,
the triumphant, the perfect, lord of springs and seas, the angry (and) merciless whose
attack is a deluge, the one who overwhelms enemy lands (and) fells the wicked, the splen-
did god who never once changes, light of heaven (and) underworld who illuminates the
interior of the apsû, annihilator of the evil, subduer of the insubmissive, destroyer of
enemies, the one whose command none of the gods in the divine assembly can alter,
bestower of life, the compassionate god to whom it is good to pray, the one who dwells
in Calah, great lord, my lord.145

I reproduce the table conceived by Amar Annus to illustrate the overlap in

human and divine epithets, which is a product of the king’s mythologization
as Ninurta (see next page).146
Other epithets include “avenger of Assyria” (muter gimil māt Aššur), first
attested under Aššur-rēša-iši I,147 the “strong one” (gašru), first attested with
Tiglath-Pileser I,148 and “to tread (kabāsu) upon the neck of the enemy” (En.
el. ii 146, 148), and “to trample (dâšu) the enemies” (Anzû ii 47).149

144 Maul 1991; Pongratz-Leisten 2001, 224 ff.

145 RIMA 2, A.0.101.1 I 1‒9a.
146 Annus 2002, 97‒98.
147 RIMA 1, A.0.86.1:8.
148 RIMA 2, A.0.87.4:3.
149 Annus 2002, 96 f.
262 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

Epithet Translation Ninurta Aššurnaṣirpal

dandannu “strong” I, 1 I, 9 (dannu)

MAH “almighty” I, 1 I, 32
SAG.KAL “foremost” I, 1 I, 32
UR.SAG “hero” I, 1 I, 20, 32 (uršānu)
NUN-ú (rubû) “prince” I, 2 (ilāni) I, 11 (maliku), 18 (NUN)
ekdu “ferocious” I, 4 I, 19 (ušumgallu)
lā padû “merciless” I, 7 I, 34 (TUKUL)
mušamqitu “who lays low” I, 7 I, 34
EN (bēlu) “lord” I, 9 I, 21, 32

The astralization of the gods Ninurta and Marduk also generated an astral
mode of representation for their weapons. As Francesca Rochberg notes, the
“mythological arrow of Ninurta (šukūdu) and that of Marduk (mulmullu) were
given astral forms as Sirius and the Pleiades, respectively. The Astrolabe’s iden-
tification of the month of Ningirsu with the Pleiades echoes the personification
of these stars as gods of war carrying bow and arrow.”150 Thus personification
is attested in an inscription of Esarhaddon and in the Erra Epic.

6.6 War, Abundance, and the Astralization

of the Warrior God
Two questions still in need of investigation are when and under what circum-
stances the awe-inspiring splendor, originally a feature of the divine, was ex-
tended to royal imagery in the way that it applies to Tukultī-Ninurta I in the
Tukultī-Ninurta Epic. I propose that the extension of this imagery to the king
originates in the development of the warrior god Ninurta’s astral aspects. As
we have seen, Ninurta was the model for the king in his role as defender
against chaos. The rising significance of astrology beginning as early as the
Old Babylonian period resulted in an increase in the astral modes of represen-
tation of the gods, including Ninurta. Following a period of several centuries,
there emerged with Tukultī-Ninurta I a royal discourse that included the mel-
ammu-splendor as an essential feature of the image of the victorious warrior.
It should be noted that the earliest compilation of the astrological omen series
Enūma Anu Enlil dates to the Old Babylonian period,151 which implies that in-

150 Rochberg 2007.

151 Rochberg 2006.
 War, Abundance, and the Astralization of the Warrior God 263

terest in and knowledge of the movement of the heavenly bodies must have
reached even further back in time.
Three astral deities, Šulpaʾe, who is in later omen texts associated with
Jupiter,152 Pabilsag, equated with Sagittarius already in the Old Babylonian pe-
riod, and Numušda, a star in the path of Ea,153 appeared in association with
Ningirsu/Ninurta in the time between the Ur III period (2112‒2004 BCE) and
the Larsa period (2025‒1763 BCE). At the time of Gudea, Šulpaʾe had his own
shrine in the local cult of the city of Lagaš and was associated with the palace
(dšul-pa-è-é-gala₈).154 Of interest is the fact that even the temple of Ninurta is
said to have been adorned with the brightness of heaven (še-er-zi-an-na-ka),155
which might reflect the beginnings of an astral discourse centered on Ninurta.
Šulpaʾe was also integrated into the pantheon of Nippur during the Ur III peri-
od, probably on account of his wife, the goddess Ninhursaga, who was already
revered there.156 A Sumerian hymn dedicated to Šulpaʾe that possibly origi-
nated in this context already refers to the luminous quality of his appearance:

Hero, who shines forth like moonlight over the upper city!
Hero Šulpaʾe, who shines forth like moonlight over the upper city!
Eminent and famous Šulpaʾe, who shines forth like moonlight over the upper city.
Lord of great divine powers (me), god who comes forth in glory (pa-e₃).
Šulpaʾe, of great divine powers, god who appears in glory, lordly in battle, who makes
vegetation grow tall in the Land!
Lord who raises his great arms, battle-club that smashes all enemies!
Pre-eminent brother-in-law of Father Enlil. Good youth of Enlil. He has named your au-
gust name.157

Of further interest to our understanding of the figure of Ninurta is the fact that
this hymn associates Šulpaʾe’s astral mode with his capacity to make vegeta-
tion grow and with his martial qualities. The concrete reference to an astral
mode of divine representation – evident in the reference to Šulpaʾe’s luminous
shine and splendor – has been overlooked in modern scholarship, perhaps
because there are no astrological omen texts from the Ur III period. Ninurta,
however, is associated with Pabilsag, who is later identified with Sagittarius in

152 Rochberg 2007.

153 Cavigneaux and Krebernik 1998.
154 Falkenstein 1963, 11 ff., 25.
155 Edzard, Gudea, E3/1.1.7.CylA xxvii 10.
156 Falkenstein 1963, 14 ff.
157 ETCSL 4.31.1:1‒9 translates l. 9 in a slightly different way, neglecting the genitive con-
struction: šul zid den-lil₂-la₂ mu mah-zu mu-un-pad₃ …, good youth! Enlil has named your
august name.
264 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

a song dedicated to the warrior deity. This song contains an interesting passage
regarding the goddess Nanše, which indicates a station (ki-gub) for Ninurta
and suggests that an astral aspect was formulated for the deity toward the end
of the third millennium or at the beginning of the second millennium BCE at
the latest:

Speak to holy Mother Nanše, so she will cast her protecting arms over you like Utu! May
she indicate your station (ki-gub) for you. …158

The hero is most precious; his word is august. He is the sun of the Land; the discloser of
great counsel in É-ama-lamma. Ninurta is most precious. Pabilsag is most precious. Ning-
irsu is most precious; his word is august. He is the sun of the Land; the discloser of great
counsel in É-ama-lamma.159

The theological discourse that developed around Šulpaʾe might have involved
the rhetoric of light in its praise of Ninurta, as is exemplified by the following
passage:

With the awesomeness that radiates from my forehead, which I make the foreign lands
wear like a nose-rope, and the fear-inspiring luster, my personal weapon, which I impose
on the Land like a neck-stock, I am able to root out and undo crime. I have the ability to
reconcile great matters with one word.160

Both Šulpaʾe and Ninurta share the epithet “thronebearer of Enlil (gu-za-lá-
d
En-líl-lá), which expresses the judicial agency of the god in the service of the
chief deity of the pantheon. Both share the quality of the youthful hero whose
principal activity is going to battle. Like Ningirsu/Ninurta, Šulpaʾe is the hero
(ur-sag), the “battle-club that smashes the enemy” (giš-gaz gu₂-erim₂ ra) and
“the rising flood” (a-gi₆ zig₃-ga). This evidence demonstrates that in the theo-
logical discourse that developed either during the Ur III period or in the Old
Babylonian period, an association was made between the warrior-aspect of dei-
ties and their astralization.
In the second millennium BCE, Šulpaʾe-Jupiter became the astral represen-
tation of the Babylonian chief god Marduk. In the first millennium text of the
Erra Epic, when the god Erra threatens the cosmic order by depriving Marduk
of his power the event is described in astral terms that refer to the divine splen-
dor of Marduk’s planet:

158 ETCSL 4.27.07 ll. 66‒69.

159 ETCSL 4.27.07 ll. 76‒97.
160 Šulgi B, ETCSL 2.4.2.02.
 War, Abundance, and the Astralization of the Warrior God 265

I will shake the netherworld and make heaven tremble,

I will make Šulpaʾe (Jupiter) shed his splendor and remove the stars in the sky.161

The third deity with whom Ninurta was associated is Numušda, who is already
attested in the Early Dynastic god lists from Fara and Abu Ṣalabīḥ. Numušda
was considered to be the son of the moon god Nanna/Sîn, which possibly ex-
plains his astral aspect. Numušda shares martial characteristics with Ningirsu/
Ninurta, among them the epithets “snarling lion,” “battle net,” “great dragon,”
and “fearsome flood.” Further, the beginning of King Sîn-iqišam of Larsa’s
(1840‒1836 BCE) hymn to Numušda162 describes him as “Numušda, son of the
prince, whose appearance is full of awe-inspiring radiance (me-lem₄),” and
refers to Numušda with epithets that are known from royal titularies. Among
these are the image of a favorable destiny being determined for him while he
was still in the womb,163 and the choosing of justice (níg-zid) and annihilation
of wickedness (níg-erim₂).164
The theological discourse centered on Ninurta/Ningirsu at the end of the
third millennium thus reveals a growing accumulation of functions and roles,
which was achieved by means of association with other gods. This accumula-
tion of functions and roles also demonstrates a concern with Ninurta/Ningir-
su’s astral aspect, which, as I suggest, laid the foundations for the ideological
adoption of the melammu-splendor by the king.
Terrifying divine splendor is at first attested sporadically as a quality as-
signed to the Ur III kings and later to some Old Babylonian kings. Under Tukul-
tī-Ninurta I, terrifying divine splendor developed into an important trope that
served to convey the overwhelming martial power that the king directed
against his enemies:

(10′) Glorious is his (the king’s) vehemence (šarrahat mamlūssu); it scor[ches the dis]re-
spectful in front and rear. 11′ Glowing is his aggressiveness (qāʾedat irhūssu); it burns the
disobedient to the left and right. 12′ His radiances are frightful (melammūšu); they over-
whelm all the enemies.165

Although the trope of terrifying divine splendor remained restricted to the tex-
tual medium in Assyria, in later periods under the Sassanian kings the halo
became an important visual icon that distinguished the king from the rest of

161 Cagni, Erra Epic IV 123‒124.

162 ETCSL 2.6.7.1.
163 ETCSL 2.6.7.1:1‒2.
164 ETCSL 2.6.7.1:38.
165 TKN I 10′‒12′
266 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

the people, identifying him as a rightful and powerful agent of the god – a role
already apparent in the Neo-Assyrian state rituals.166
During the second half of the second millennium BCE, scholars revived the
ancient association of Ningirsu with agriculture, as is expressed in his role as
“master of the flood” in an Old Babylonian period Sumerian balbale-song to
Ninurta.167 This revival served to frame the trope of abundance guaranteed by
the agency of the god, which is expressed in astral terms. In this context, Nin-
urta is also associated with the Sebetti, i.e. their astral representation the Pleia-
des, because their heliacal rising in early summer and their disappearance in
November marks the agricultural periods of harvest and sowing. Accordingly,
control over the Sebetti/Pleiades was of prime importance and represented a
major theme in the mythological discourse centered on the warrior deities
Ningirsu/Ninurta and later Marduk. The relationship between Ningirsu and the
Pleiades is apparent in Astrolabe B, the earliest known example of which dates
to the Middle Assyrian period and was written by Marduk-balāssu-ēreš, the son
of the royal scholar (ṭupšar šarri) Ninurta-uballissu, who worked in the service
of the Assyrian king in the city of Aššur.168 In contrast to the astronomical
instruments that measure the altitude of the stars, the function of the Mesopo-
tamian astrolabes was to identify the stars that rose each month in the Paths
of Anu, Enlil, and Ea. In the menology of Astrolabe B, the rising of stars in
the Path of Ea was connected with agricultural work. Ajjaru, the month of the
Pleiades, is said to be the month of the ‘opening of the soil’169 and is addition-
ally associated with Ningirsu:

166 See above.

167 Balbale Song to Ninurta (Ninurta F), ETCSL 4.27.06: “Through the king, flax is born,
through the king, barley is born. Through him, carp floods are made plentiful in the river.
Through him, fine grains are made to grow in the fields. Through him carp are made plentiful
in the lagoons. Through him, mature and fresh reeds are made to grow in the reed thickets.
Through him, fallow deer and wild sheep are made plentiful in the forests. Through him mash-
gurum trees are made to grow in the high desert. Through him, syrup and wine are made
plentiful in the watered gardens. Through him, life which is long is made to grow in the pal-
ace.” Ninurta’s role of controlling the “turbulent waters of the Tigris that return to Girsu during
the flood season from the great mountain ranges” (George 2011, 9 i 2) in the East has another
metaphorical meaning as illustrated by the following quote from Gudea Cyl. A viii 15‒16: lugal-
mu dNin-gír-su en a huš gi4‒a en-zi a kur-gal ri-a “My master Ningirsu, lord who is fierce
waters that returned (or: were sent back) (during the flood season), true lord who is water/
semen ejaculated by the Great Mountain (i.e., Enlil).” In the words of George 2011, 9 “this
wonderful poetic image harks back to the beginning of Cylinder A (i 5‒9), where the outpour-
ing of Enlil’s fatherly love for Ningirsu is likened to the overflowing Tigris ‒ in turn equated
with Enlil’s heart, which brings forth sweet water, i.e. Ningirsu.”
168 Horowitz 1998, 159 n. 17 and 2011, 104.
169 Horowitz 1998, 164.
 War, Abundance, and the Astralization of the Warrior God 267

(To) the month Ajjaru (belong) the Pleiades, the Seven, the great gods.
Opening of the ground.
The oxen are prepared.
The flooding canal(?) is opened.
The plows are washed.
It is the month of the hero Ningirsu,
The great administrator of Enlil.170

Control of the Pleiades was significant insofar as their conjunction with the
moon was considered to be of devastating consequence, as is described in the
astrological omen series Enūma Anu Enlil: ‘When the Pleiades stand in the
moon, there will be death and the Sebetti will devour the land.’171 The associa-
tion of Ninurta’s astral aspect with the growth of vegetation is further evident
in a Šu-ila prayer addressed to Kaksisa-Ninurta:

You, Kaksisa-Ninurta, foremost of the great gods,

Runner along the pure heavens,
Utaulu, whose battle has no equal,
Powerful firstborn, beloved of Nunnamnir,
Legitimate farmer, who heaps up the crop in mounds
Who piles up the grain, who saves the life of all the people.172

Because of the prominence of astrology and the rise of astronomy during the
first millennium, the astral associations of Ninurta became more and more evi-
dent. This is apparent in the so-called Neo-Assyrian Syncretic Hymn to Ninurta:

Your eyelids, O lord are the twins Sîn [and Šamaš],

Your eyebrows are the corona of the sun that [ ],
Your mouth’s shape, O lord, is the evening star,
Anu and Antu are your lips, your speech [is Nusku?],
Your discoursing tongue(?) is Pabilsag (Sagittarius), who [ ] on high,
The roof of your mouth O lord, is the circumference of heaven and earth, abode of [ ],
Your teeth are the Seven (Pleiades), who slay evildoers.173

The scholarly shaping of Marduk as the heroic warrior involved the adoption
and elaboration of Ninurta’s astral aspects in Enūma Eliš, in the Erra Epic, in
cultic commentaries, and in a myth that formed part of the incantation series
utukkū lemnūtu. The Pleiades represent the seven sons of the warrior deity En-

170 Weidner 1915, 85 and Gössmann 1950, 109.

171 Gössmann 1950, 162 § 13h), Virolleaud, ACh II Suppl. IX a.
172 Mayer 1990, 470.
173 Foster 2005, 713.
268 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

mešarra in a Neo-Assyrian cultic commentary, which comments as follows on

day 19 of the month Šabatu:

The 19th day, which they call the Silence, is when he vanquished Anu and the Pleiades,
the sons of Enmešarra.174

Astronomical texts generally lack an explanation for lunar eclipses. A bilingual

historiola that forms part of the utukkū lemnūtu exorcistic series, however, pro-
vides a mythological explanation for lunar eclipses that involves the agency of
Marduk.175 The seven evil demons (utukkū lemnūtu) are merged with the Pleia-
des and associated with Anu like in the Erra Epic. The historiola relies on the
astral observation of the conjunction of the moon and the Pleiades to explain
the astral phenomenon of the lunar eclipse, which appears to reflect some ten-
sion between Enlil and Anu:

When Enlil heard that report (of the Seven causing darkness),
He took the matter to heart.
With Ea, the lofty leader of
the gods, he took counsel and (as a result)
Sîn (the moon god), Šamaš (the sun god), and Ištar (Venus) he installed to keep the hori-
zon in order.
With Anu he (Enlil) had them (Sun, Moon and Venus) share the rulership of all the heav-
ens.
Unto these three, the gods, his children
He commanded them their night and day ‒ unceasing ‒ standing.
When those Seven, the evil gods
Break loose in the horizon,
Confronting Nannar-Sîn, ferociously they encircle (him) completely.176

As a counteraction, Ea calls upon his son Marduk to rescue the moon:

Ea called his son Marduk, and informed him of the matter.

“Go, Marduk, my son!
The son of the prince, Nannar-Sîn, who is evilly dark in the sky ‒
His eclipse in the heavens is clearly visible.
The Seven, they, evil gods, the fearless deathcausers, they,
The Seven, they, evil gods who like the Great Flood
Rise up and sweep over the country,
Upon the land like the storm they rise up.

174 SAA 3 no. 40:5.

175 Azarpay and Kilmer 1978, 374.
176 CT 16 19 52‒73, quoted after Azarpay and Kilmer 1978, 372‒373.
 War, Abundance, and the Astralization of the Warrior God 269

Fig. 45: Seleucid Period Lunar Eclipse Tablet (Berlin, VAT 7847;
after Beaulieu 1999, 92, fig. 1).

Confronting Nannar-Sîn, ferociously they encircle (him) completely.”177

This 7th century historiola can be related to an image on an astrological tablet

from the Seleucid period that deals with lunar eclipses (fig. 45). The image
depicts the Pleiades, the lunar disc with a man and a dragon who is coiled
around the moon’s perimeter, and Taurus. Although Ann Kilmer interprets the
man as Marduk (alias Jupiter?), it is more precisely Marduk having absorbed
the functions of Ninurta who rescues the moon with his magic club in his right
hand and a rhombus-shaped dagger in his left hand, with which he stabs the
dragon.
These few examples suffice to reveal the cosmic implications of the king’s
role as the warrior god Ninurta, which in the ancient weltanschauung went far
beyond the battle between ‘good and evil’. Any time the Assyrian king went
on a military campaign to fight the enemy it was the cosmic balance itself that
was at stake in mythological and theological terms. Among his other accom-
plishments, it was the king’s military success that was thought to guarantee
prosperity and abundance. The close relationship in royal discourse between
war and abundance can, however, only be fully grasped with an understand-
ing of the astral aspects of divine prototypes like the warrior god. I am by no
means reviving the older notion of Mesopotamian religion as an astral religion,
but I would like to emphasize that we cannot understand either certain juxta-
positions and constellations of gods in theological lists and other contexts or
the grouping of certain themes such as war and abundance without considering
the astral aspects associated with the divine prototypes. The seeming unrelat-

177 CT 16 19:131‒149.
270 The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

edness of the roles of the king as Ninurta – divine administrator, warrior, and
guarantor of abundance and prosperity – becomes intelligible if we understand
these roles in light of the king’s belligerent and masculine staging, since royal
masculinity was a necessary prerequisite for the successful performance of the
functions that guaranteed the social and cosmic order.
7 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge
7.1 Experience, Expertise and Knowledge:
The King’s Place in the Cosmic Scheme
Read from a diachronic perspective, the plotline of the Assyrian royal inscrip-
tions does not remain restricted to that of the combat myth as conceived in the
Middle Assyrian period. Another important trope, which emerges under the
Middle Assyrian king Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE), is that of the capable,
intelligent, and wise ruler who shares in divine knowledge. This trope is subse-
quently elaborated in the first millennium, initially in the Standard Babylonian
Gilgameš Epic and then in the Sargonid royal inscriptions. Tukultī-Ninurta I
includes the trope of the wise ruler in his titulary in one of the later building
inscriptions from his newly built residence in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta, which was
constructed following his conquest of Babylonia:

Tukultī-Ninurta, strong king, king of all people, prince, vice-regent of Aššur, the foremost
purification priest, ruler of rulers, the able favorite of Enlil (teleʾû migir dEnlil), rightful
shepherd, king (whose) decree cannot be rivaled, designate of Anu, the one who under-
stands (pīt hasīsi), the wise one (eršu), who reaches the utmost boundaries of wisdom
(gāmer pāṭ nēmeqi), the beloved of Niššiku (namad dNiššiki),1 the pure one, worthy repre-
sentative of the scepter and the tiara (= kingship: simat haṭṭi u agê) …2

It is tempting to view Tukultī-Ninurta I’s choice of the trope of the wise ruler
as a consequence of his conquest of Babylon, which – according to the Tukultī-
Ninurta Epic – occasioned the transfer of multiple scholarly and literary tablets
to libraries in Aššur. It is likely that this transfer of knowledge also included
the migration and perhaps even the deportation of Babylonian scholars to the
Assyrian court, who then participated in the shaping of royal discourse. Both
the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic and the royal inscription quoted above strongly sug-
gest the involvement of Babylonian scholars in their composition, as does the
production of Sumero-Babylonian bilinguals during the reign of Tukultī-Ninur-
ta I.3 Indeed, Tukultī-Ninurta I’s self-praise mirrors the praise of the god Nabû
at the end of his epic, thus representing another example of the king adopting
a particular set of characteristics associated with a specific divinity. The ap-
pearance of the trope of the knowledgeable king in Assyrian royal discourse
constitutes an example of the revival of a particular trope which in earlier times

1 The use of the term nammadu is quite unusual, see CAD N/1, 207, s.v. namaddu B.
2 Deller, Fadhil, and Ahmad 1994, 464‒465.
3 See also Chapter 3.5.3.1.
272 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

had figured in poetic texts like the royal self-praises of the kings of Ur, for
instance, rather than in what we traditionally consider to be historical inscrip-
tions.
As a model for kingship, the trope of the wise and knowledgeable ruler is
first negotiated in mythic literature. The presence of texts like the originally
Old Babylonian period Cuthean Legend and the Gilgameš Epic in the Assyrian
royal libraries indicates the significance that the Sargonid rulers attributed to
the trope of sharing in and controlling divine knowledge – Sumerian nam-kù-
zu, “pure, sacred knowledge,” Akkadian nēmequ – which “reinforced the sense
of loyalty to the established order.”4 As Bendt Alster notes,5 this knowledge
included the cultural knowledge of the king in his role as judge establishing
civic order; knowledge of correct ritual performance and magic, the origins of
which were traced back to the god Ea; scribal knowledge; and experience
gained from life and handed down from legendary figures such as Atrahasīs,
Gilgameš, Adapa, Šuruppak, and Ahiqar. The notion that semi-divine figures
transmitted their knowledge of the skills of civilization to humankind survives
in Berossos’ Babylōniaká, in which the fish-man Oannes (Mesopotamian: Ada-
pa) features as cultural hero.6
Although the primary meaning of the term hasīsu and its derivatives is
“aperture of the ear” and “(faculty) of hearing,” the term also represents skilled
knowledge of the kind required for the building of temples, for fashioning stat-
ues, for casting bronze, and for a broad range of comparable activities. All of
this knowledge was subsumed under the umbrella term nēmequ. The term ha-
sīsu designates the acquisition of such knowledge from exclusive professional
circles or from within the family;7 once in possession of such knowledge, both
professional circles and skilled families guarded it through generations. Ulti-
mately, however, practical knowledge was conceived as being derived from the
gods. This is indicated by the Old Babylonian Sumerian poem Inanna and Enki,
which lists professional skills in the list of the me,8 as well as by the divinities
that epitomize specific professions. First millennium texts like the Catalogue of
Texts and Authors and the Enmeduranki Legend similarly trace various compen-
dia pertaining to professional knowledge back to the gods.9 In this conception,

4 Beaulieu 2007b, 3; for an extensive discussion of all the terms related to knowledge see
Galter 1983.
5 Alster 2005, 21.
6 Schnabel 1923; Burstein 1978; Kuhrt 1987; Verbrugghe and Wickersham 2001.
7 Bremmer 1995; Graf 1996.
8 Farber-Flügge 1973, 56‒59 II v 65‒vi 2.
9 See, for example, ina hissat libbīja, as used by Aššurnaṣirpal II: “When I created that image
of Ninurta (ṣalam dNinurta šuātu), which in former times did not exist, (using) my knowledge
 Experience, Expertise and Knowledge: The King’s Place in the Cosmic Scheme 273

skill, expertise, and what the modern mind perceives as human ingenuity are
all derived from the gods rather than from one’s own cognitive faculties. The
gods could and sometimes did share their knowledge with the king; in the
Enmeduranki Legend, for instance, the gods share their knowledge with King
Enmeduranki, who then shares it with his scholars. Practical knowledge is in-
cluded in divine knowledge, imbuing it with symbolic meaning. This is central
to understanding later Assyrian royal inscriptions, in which any technical or
cultural achievement serves as a powerful idiom for highlighting the king’s
participation in the cosmic scheme. Interestingly, the trope of the knowledgea-
ble king falls away after Tukultī-Ninurta I, to be revived only under the Sargo-
nid kings, who describe themselves as wise or knowledgeable (eršu),10 capable
(lēʾû), experienced (itpēšu), intelligent (hassu), learned (mūdû),11 informed
(muntalku),12 circumspect and trustworthy (pitqudu),13 and broad of under-
standing (šadal karše),14 thereby cultivating an image of professionalism and
“technical and informational competency.”15 In one of the few inscriptions that
give his other name, Esarhaddon (680‒669 BCE) makes a special case for hav-
ing acquired expertise in all scholarly knowledge:

[Aššur-eṭel-ilāni]-mukīn-apli, the crown prince who (resides in) in palace of Succession,

[… is comp]lete, surpassing in intelligence, […] whose mind has been educated … of all
scholarship, …16

Royal ideological discourse regarding knowledge developed over time. Ancient

Near Eastern knowledge is primarily practical rather than moral or philosophi-

(of tradition), the lamassu of his great divinity, out of the best stone of the mountain and red
gold, I considered it as part of (the innovations) of my great divinity in the city of Kalah,
(RIMA 2, A.0.101.31:13‒15 e-nu-ma ALAM dMAŠ šu-a-tú šá ina pa-an la-a GÁL-ú 14) ina hi-sa-at
lìb-bi-ia dLAMMA DINGIR-ti-šú GAL-ti ina du-muq NA₄ KUR-e ù KÙ.GI hu-še-e lu-ú ab-ni 15) ana
DINGIR-ti-ia GAL-te ina URU Kal-hi lu-ú am-nu-šú) The translations of the Chicago Assyrian
Dictionary “with my intuitive understanding,” and of Ronald Sweet “with my clever mind”
(Sweet 1990, 52) do not convey this connotation. Irene Winter’s rendering “cunning/lit. intelli-
gence, inspiration of the heart” (Winter 2008, 336 fn. 31) comes close to the original meaning,
though it would be better to omit the notion of inspiration as well as the ‘heart’ in the modern
sense, since the Akkadian libbu is understood as the seat of the rational mind.
10 Seux 1967, 22.
11 For this sequence of adjectives see Esarhaddon’s Nineveh A Inscription, RINAP 4 no. 1 col. ii
18‒19.
12 Esarhaddon, Aššur-Babylon A Inscription (AsBbA), RINAP 4 no. 48:24.
13 See entries under CAD P, 441 f., s.v. pitqudu.
14 Sargon II, TCL 3 23.
15 Holloway 2002, 83.
16 Nineveh J = RINAP 4 no. 13 1‒3.
274 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

cal,17 but cultural knowledge was nevertheless defined differently in different

historical contexts. Although knowledge was ultimately derived from the gods,
the Sumero-Babylonian tradition conceived of knowledge as residing with the
mythical kings in the time before the flood, and with Ziusudra in particular, as
is reflected in the Sumerian text The Instructions of Šuruppak.18 Šuruppak’s
instructions to his son Ziusudra comprise teachings fundamental to civilized
life19 and include entirely practical concerns linked to agriculture, irrigation,
and animal husbandry. The Old Babylonian version of the text introduces Šu-
ruppak as the wise man, who tells his son to obey his instructions. Another
Sumerian text, The Instructions of Ur-Ninurta,20 demonstrates that the practical
human undertakings included in the realm of cultural knowledge were consid-
ered essential to the cult of the gods. Accordingly, civilized life implied a rela-
tionship between kingship and knowledge of how to ensure the continuity of
civilization as established by the mythic culture heroes from before the flood.
To ensure proper provisioning of the gods, the king had to guarantee social
order and justice so that civilized life would be maintained. The king did so by
drawing on primeval knowledge from the time before the flood and transmitted
over generations down to the time in which the king lived; in other words,
the king ostensibly maintained order by upholding established traditions and
conventions.21
Some curses at the end of commemorative royal inscriptions instruct the
king’s successors to read the stele or foundation tablet on which the inscrip-
tions are written and to treat these objects in a ritually correct way before re-
turning them to their proper place. It is these inscriptions that best encapsulate
the cultural discourse emphasizing respect for and adherence to the past. An
explicit admonition is expressed in the Cuthean Legend, which appears to have
informed the beginning of the Standard Babylonian Gilgameš Epic:

Cuthean Legend (Standard Babylonian Version) 149‒180

149 You, whoever you are, be it governor or prince or anyone else,
150 whom the gods will call to perform kingship,
151 I made a tablet-box for you and inscribed a stele for you.

17 See Alster 2005, 21 who argues for abandoning the notion of ‘wisdom literature’. For earlier
discussions on the notion of knowledge and wisdom see Galter 1983; Sweet 1990; Wilcke 1991;
Denning-Bolle 1992; Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 286 ff.; Winter 2008.
18 Alster 2005, 31‒220.
19 Beaulieu 2007b, 6.
20 Alster 2005, 221‒264.
21 Note that níg-gi-na = kittu ‘stability, cosmic order’ directly follows the office of kingship
and its insignia, as well as priesthood, Farber-Flügge 1973, 54‒55 II v 16.
 Experience, Expertise and Knowledge: The King’s Place in the Cosmic Scheme 275

152 In Kutha, in the Emeslam,

153 in the cella of Nergal, I left (it) for you.
154 Read this stele!
155 Hearken unto the words of this stele!
156 Be not bewildered! Be not confused!
157 Be not afraid! Do not tremble!
158 Let your foundations be firm!
159 You, within the embrace of your wife, do your work!
160 Strengthen your walls!
161 Fill your moats with water!
162 Your chests, your grain, your money, your goods, your possessions
163 bring into your stronghold!
164 Tie up your weapons and (put) them into the corners!
165 Guard your courage! Take heed of your own person!
166 Let him (the enemy) roam through your land! Go not out to him!
168 Let him consume the flesh of your offspring!
169 Let him murder, (and) let him return (unharmed)!
170 (But) you be self-controlled, disciplined.
171 Answer them: “Here I am, sir!”
172 Requite their wickedness with kindness!
173 And (their) kindness with gifts and supplementary presents (?)!
174 Always precede them (i.e., do more than they ask)!
175 Wise scribes,
176 let them declaim your inscription.
177 You who have read my inscription
178 and thus have gotten yourself out (of trouble)
179 you who have blessed me, may a future (ruler)
180 bless you!22

Gilgameš Epic (Standard Babylonian Version) 1‒28

  1 [He who saw the Deep, the] foundation of the country,
  2 [who knew …,] was wise in everything!
  3 [Gilgamesh, who] saw the Deep, the foundation of the country,
  4 [who] knew [….,] was wise in everything!
  5 […] … equally […,]
  6 he [learnt] the totality of wisdom (naphar nēmeqi) about everything,
  7 He saw the secret (niṣirta) and uncovered the hidden (katimta),
  8 He brought back a message from the antediluvian age (ṭēma ša lām abūbi).
  9 He came a distant road and weary but granted rest,
 10 [he] set down on a stele (ina narê) all (his) labors.
 11‒23 Description of Uruk
 24 [Find] the tablet box of cedar (tupšenna ša erēni),
 25 [release] its clasps of bronze!
 26 [Open] the lid of its secret (niṣirtišu),

22 Westenholz 1997, 327‒331.

276 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

 27 [lift] up the tablet of lapis lazuli (ṭuppi uqnî) and read out
 28 all the misfortunes, all that Gilgamesh went through.23

According to both the Cuthean Legend and the Gilgameš Epic, two elements
were essential to correct royal behavior in mediating the interdependence of
the divine and human world: ensuring the continuation of civilization and
passing on relevant knowledge to future occupants of the office of kingship.
Any failure with respect to either of these responsibilities led irrevocably to
abandonment by the gods and, implicitly, to the ultimate collapse of the cos-
mic order. As such, the king served as mediator between the primordial past
and the historical present. The expectations linked to the institution of king-
ship explain the overall idea of the Assyrian royal inscriptions, which in addi-
tion to referencing warfare, the hunt, and care of the cult, include utopian
visions ranging from the rhetoric of abundance24 to the rhetoric of social equal-
ity25 and the mastering of technical expertise. All of these references and vi-
sions attempt in some way to demonstrate and affirm the king’s fulfillment of
the expectations connected to his office.
The idea that it was important for kings to record their experiences in writ-
ten form, implying the importance of the transmission of knowledge of ruler-
ship to future generations, was not restricted to the Cuthean Legend and the
Gilgameš Epic. This idea also appears in the Synchronistic History, a Neo-Assyri-
an text that survives in three copies from Ashurbanipal’s Library; the text is
written in Standard Babylonian and contains a number of Assyrianisms. Like
the Entemena Cylinder from Pre-Sargonic Lagaš, which regulates the boundary
between Umma and Lagaš, and like the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, which focuses on
diplomatic agreements between Assyria and Babylonia, the Synchronistic Histo-
ry places the treaty between Assyria and Babylonia concerning their mutual
boundaries at the center of its narrative. Indeed, the continued violation of this
treaty by the Babylonians constitutes the text’s basic content, these violations
being followed time and again by the victories of various Assyrian kings who
manage to re-establish the borders specified by the treaty. In the text’s conclu-
sion, its author speaks of the fact that the Synchronistic History was inscribed

23 George 2003, 539 f. This combination of the trope of the hero as expressed in the passage
“the surpassing one of (all) kings” (šūtur eli šarrī) and in that of the knowledgeable king is
already attested in the version from Ugarit (Arnaud 2007), although it is anchored differently
in the narrative structure (see George 2007). For the various prologues of the epic see most
recently Sasson 2013.
24 Winter 2003.
25 Pongratz-Leisten 2005.
 Experience, Expertise and Knowledge: The King’s Place in the Cosmic Scheme 277

on a stele in order to exhort future rulers to take the necessary measures to

ensure that they would not fall short of their predecessors:

Synchronistic History iv 23‒26

Let a later prince who wishes to achieve fame in Akkad, write about the prowess of [his]
victories. [Let him] continually [turn] to this [very] stele (and) [look at it] that it may not
be forgotten.

Finally, a similar concern can be observed in the so-called Weidner Chronicle.26

The Weidner Chronicle is in the form of a letter and is said to be written by a
king of Isin to the king of Babylon. The text only survives in copies from the
first millennium, one of which was found in the House of the Exorcist in Aššur.
In this text, the advice (amāt šitulti, “word of deliberation/consultation”, l.3)
given by one ruler to the other concerns the proper administration of the cult
of Marduk in Babylon; the recipient of the letter is, however, reproached for
failing to heed such instruction (urtu), and the king of Isin therefore relates his
experience (alaktu), cast in a dream-vision in which he receives advice from
the goddess Gula. The text represents a unique creation that alternates be-
tween good and bad kings and descriptions of their administration of Marduk’s
cult. It is steeped in the tradition of the Sumerian King List and in the omen
traditions centered on the kings of Akkad, and its structure is reminiscent of
the literary predictive texts, i.e. the Akkadian Prophecies.27 While the Weidner
Chronicle is explicitly concerned with the cult of Marduk, the Advice to a Prince,
which is known from Ashurbanipal’s Library, focuses on the king’s treatment
of the citizens of Babylon, Sippar, and Nippur. As observed by Lambert, the
aim of the text is to protect the citizens of these cities “from taxation, forced
labor, and misappropriation of their property.”28 The Advice to a Prince is writ-
ten in the style of the omen compendia and is a serious political statement
regarding the privileges of the citizens of the central Babylonian cultic centers,
a concern that is especially apparent in the inscriptions of Sargon II.29 It is
addressed to kings in general and to the foreign (=Assyrian) king in particular,
and thus represents another indication of the belief that the king’s actions were
supposed to conform to established traditions defining the office of kingship –
in this case the granting of privileges to certain cities.
The texts discussed above represent variations on the subject of correct
royal conduct, and their intertextual relationships reveal the erudition and cre-
ativity of the scholars at the Assyrian court.

26 For the latest edition see al-Rawi 1990.

27 Grayson and Lambert 1964; Biggs 1985 and 1987; de Jong Ellis 1989.
28 Lambert 1960, 111.
29 Chamaza 1992.
278 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

7.2 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise

The trope of mastering technical expertise, i.e. of human ingenuity with respect
to improving living conditions and providing better care for the gods, was
clearly of great importance to the author of the late version of the Gilgameš
Epic. In Assyrian cultural discourse the emphasis on technical knowledge and
practical information emerges in the Middle Assyrian period, in which Assyrian
kings began elaborating on the trope of abundance in very concrete terms. As
Irene Winter notes, the trope of abundance is always linked to water.30 Al-
though they stress their service to the gods, the Assyrian kings also point to
their building of canals to provide for the cultivation of the crops that secure
the subsistence of the city. This discourse was originally based in the topogra-
phical conditions of the city of Aššur. In contrast to the other Assyrian royal
residences, which are all located in rich agricultural zones, Aššur is situated
on a natural spur at the edge of the dry-farming belt, a highly unfavorable
location necessitating the transport of water to the city’s temples, palaces, and
residential quarters.
The Old Assyrian ruler Ilu-šumma is the first to mention construction that
was intended to secure Aššur’s water supply:

The god Aššur opened for me two springs in Mount Abih and I made bricks for the wall
by these two springs. The water of one spring flowed down to the Aušum Gate (while) the
water of the other spring flowed down to the Wertum Gate.31

By the Middle Assyrian period, kings sought to meet Aššur’s growing water
needs by building major canal systems. In one of his inscriptions, Tukultī-Nin-
urta I (1233‒1197 BCE) relates that he redirected the ‘Canal of Justice’, which
had formerly provided water for Aššur, in order to water the fields surrounding
his newly built residence Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta.32 This was not a minor project,33
but Tukultī-Ninurta I’s successor Aššur-nādin-apli (1196‒1193 BCE) reversed it –
probably because Tukultī-Ninurta I’s actions jeopardized Aššur’s water sup-
ply.34 Aššur-bēl-kala (1073‒1056 BCE) boasts that he re-excavated the source of
a canal that had been dug by Aššurdan I (1168‒1133 BCE) in order to pro-
vide Aššur with water.35 A similar discourse is apparent in Aššurnaṣirpal II’s

30 Winter 2003.
31 RIMA 1, A.0.32.2:30‒48.
32 RIMA 1, A.0.78.22.
33 Bagg 200b and Kühne 2012.
34 RIMA 1, A.0.79.1.
35 RIMA 2, A.0.89.7: v 20‒31.
 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise 279

(883‒859 BCE) relocation of his residence to the city of Calah, which he provid-
ed with water by means of a canal drawing from the Upper Zab.36
The emergence of this cultural discourse in the textual sources is accompa-
nied by the appearance of the stylized tree in the palace decoration of Tukultī-
Ninurta I, the precise representation of which varies until the reign of Shalma-
neser III. Earlier scholarship associated the stylized tree, which is often flanked
by protective genii, with the pollination of the date palm,37 but later interpreta-
tions have considered it either as an “emblem of the provisioning of the land
and the role of the king in relation to it,”38 or as a symbol of fertility and
cosmic order.39 Because the date palm is not central to Assyrian agricultural
production,40 its choice as a visual metaphor for abundance requires an expla-
nation. Barbara Porter’s association of the date palm with Ištar, a connection
that extends to the beginnings of Mesopotamian history,41 seems the most
plausible link, and it has the additional merit of being supported by represen-
tations of Ištar and the palm tree on ivories and alabaster vessels.42 Assyrian
ideological discourse does not link the image of the date palm exclusively to
fertility; rather, it associates the date palm also with the king’s capacity for
proper action, which is guaranteed by his communication with the divine
world through Ištar, who mediates between the gods and the king to that
end.43
Under Tiglath-Pileser I (1114‒1076 BCE), utilitarian descriptions of the con-
struction of canals and the undertaking of other measures to improve the sup-
ply of water to Aššur are supplemented by the much less practical building of
landscape gardens44 for the king’s “lordly leisure” (kirî rišâte).45 These descrip-
tions represent an ideological exploitation of technical knowledge, as Tiglath-
Pileser I’s introduction of the landscape garden – replete with large numbers
of exotic plants and animals – served as a further means of displaying the
image of the king as having domesticated the forces of chaos and having
brought them fully under his control.46 Tiglath-Pileser I thus set the stage for

36 Lackenbacher 1982, 124 ff.

37 Gadd 1945, 91‒92 and Porada 1948 vol. 1, 76‒93, and more recently Porter 2003.
38 Frankfort 1948; Oppenheim 1964; Winter 1981, 10.
39 Reade 1983, 27‒28.
40 Porter 2003b, 17.
41 Landsberger 1967.
42 Porter 2003b, 17 with reference to Moortgat 19982, vol. 2, 72‒74 and figs. 31‒33.
43 See below.
44 RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vii 17‒27.
45 RIMA 2, A.0.87.10 71 ff.
46 Stronach 1990.
280 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

Fig. 46: Ashurbanipal North Palace, relief depicting Sennacherib’s gardens and canals
(British Museum 124939, b, Courtesy British Museum).

the imagery of huge parks (fig. 46) and hunting grounds depicted in the Neo-
Assyrian reliefs, which in turn functioned as the model for the Persian pari-
daiḏa ‘walled enclosure, pleasure park, garden’.47 During the next major ex-
pansion of the Assyrian empire in the ninth century, Aššurnaṣirpal II (883‒
859 BCE) went “out of his way to record the often exotic tress, cuttings, and
seed which were retrieved on his campaigns, and which were then planted
within the bounds of his new garden at Nimrud.”48 Far beyond signaling the
king’s pleasure, the royal gardens came to underline the cosmic role of the
king “in assuring the fertility and fruitfulness of the land as a whole.”49 When
he built his new capital Khorsabad, Sargon II (722‒705 BCE) also established a
royal garden, which he compares to Mount Amanus and in which he says he

47 There is a vast literature on the Mesopotamian royal gardens, and my list is not exhaustive:
Oppenheim 1965; Wiseman 1983 and 1984; Wiseman 1984; Stronach 1989 and 1990; Novak
1999, 332‒351; see Mynihan 1979 on Persian and later gardens.
48 Stronach 1990, 171.
49 Stronach 1990, 172.
 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise 281

planted every tree of Hatti and the plants of every mountain; in this way,
Sargon II exploits the ideological potential of his garden to mirror and manifest
his control of the world.
Royal discourse centered on skill and knowledge developed further under
Sennacherib (704‒681 BCE), whose Bavian Inscription emphasizes the techni-
cal details of his construction of a complex infrastructure for the provision of
water to Nineveh. In contrast to earlier royal inscriptions, which follow the
sequential rhetoric of the chaîne opératoire of the king’s actions – titulary, mili-
tary account, building account – the invocation of the gods in Sennacherib’s
Bavian Inscription is followed by an account of the irrigation system he built
around Nineveh and only then proceeds to the narrative of his military success,
in this case the destruction of Babylon (figs. 47‒49). In his account of the con-
struction of the hydraulic system that was to supply Nineveh and its surround-
ings with water, Sennacherib dwells at great length on technical details:

At that time I greatly enlarged the abode of Nineveh. Its wall and the outer wall thereof,
which had not existed before, I built anew and raised mountain-high. Its fields, which
through lack of water had turned into wasteland, and came to look like holes? so that its
people did not know water for irrigation but (instead) used to wait for rain to fall from
the sky, (these fields) I watered, and from the villages of … 17 GN …, the waters, which
were above the town of Hadabiti, (through) eighteen canals, which I dug, I directed their
course towards the Khosr River. From the border of he town Kisiri to the midst of Nineveh
I had a canal dug and brought those waters down therein. Sennacherib-Canal, I called its
name. And the surplus of those waters I led out through the midst of Mount Tas, a difficult
mountain, on the border of Akkad. …50

The Bavian Inscription further details the building measures that ensured the
provision of water for the orchards and vineyards of Nineveh and the fields
around it. This first section of the inscription concludes with the dedication of
the canal from Tarbisu to Nineveh and a description of Sennacherib’s generous
payment to the workmen.
The Bavian Inscription’s building account emphasizes Sennacherib’s mas-
tery of hydraulic techniques51 and functions like an extended year name, as
the preamble to the second part of the inscription, which narrates the military
account, begins as follows: “in the same year with the opening of that canal,
which I dug, …” A description of Sennacherib’s military campaign against Elam
and Babylon follows, resulting in the destruction of Babylon by means of flood-
ing. Only after the narrative regarding Babylon’s destruction does the king re-
sume his description of the construction of the canal system, which concludes

50 Luckenbill, OIP 2, 79 f. ll. 5‒13.

51 Bagg 2000a.
282 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

Fig. 47: Bavian Relief of Sennacherib riding horse (after Börker-Klähn 1982: No. 186b).

with a reference to six steles that were set up at the source of the canal in
mount Tas and which are said to bear an image of Sennacherib himself in
reverential pose, praying to the gods (lābin appi) depicted above him.
Sennacherib’s Bavian Inscription thus combines the two key metaphors of
the king: first, the monarch assumes the beneficial role of Ninurta as patron of
agriculture controlling the waters of the mountains and guiding them into the
Mesopotamian plain (Lugal-e 355 ff.).52 Second, the devastating effect of Ninur-
ta’s onrushing flood – one of Ninurta’s weapons as known from Assyrian royal
inscriptions and the much earlier myths of Lugal-e and Angimdimma53 – is
manifest in the king’s destruction of Babylon. In the Sumerian poem Fields of
Ninurta, Ninurta is credited with the invention of agriculture and its tools,54 a

52 Civil 1994, 98; Annus 2002, 152‒156.

53 See Annus 2002, 123‒133 with numerous references and a bibliography.
54 The incipit of this text reads u₄-ri₂-[a] u₄ sud-r[i₂-a] “in those days, in those distant days”
and thus resembles the Barton Cylinder (Alster and Westenholz 1994). In the text The Fields
of Ninurta, Ninurta is equally introduced as the son of Enlil, and depicted in charge of all the
fields of Nippur. The text survives in several Ur III fragments and at least eight Old Babylonian
witnesses from Nippur. About 160 lines of the text are preserved which originally may have
had as manyas 280 lines (see Rubio 2003, 205). In this text “a lexical template has been ex-
panded and interdigitated with predicates, which fashioned it into a literary work.” (Rubio
2003, 207).
 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise 283

Fig. 48: Bavian Relief of Sennacherib Adoration (after Börker-Klähn 1982: No. 187a).

trope revived under Sennacherib’s son and successor Esarhaddon, who wrote
his name in astroglyphs and included the plough as a symbol of Ninurta.55
Sennacherib’s significant investment in what was probably a summer resi-
dence and gardens at the site of Bavian – decorated with several reliefs show-
ing him either riding his horse into battle (fig. 47) or in adoration of the gods
Aššur and Ištar-Mullissu (figs. 48 and 49) – demonstrate the great importance
the Assyrian king assigned to his hydraulic achievements.

55 On the interpretation of the writing of Esarhaddon’s name in hieroglyphs see Finkel and
Reade (1996) and Roaf and Zgoll 2001.
284 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

Fig. 49: Bavian Relief of Sennacherib Adoration Entire Scene (after Börker-Klähn 1982:
No. 188).

Similarly, it is Sennacherib with his interest in technical knowledge who

introduced the trope comparing the king to Adapa, one of the seven sages in
the entourage of Ea, the god of practical knowledge. A Seleucid text lists Adapa
as the first among the seven sages,56 juxtaposing legendary and historical
kings with their chief scholars. Indeed, during the first millennium BCE “Uʾan-
na/Adapa, known under the form Oannes in Berossos, became the archetype
of antediluvian knowledge and wisdom.”57 Although the Verse Account, a prop-
aganda text directed against the late Babylonian king Nabonidus (555‒539
BCE), reflects the rising claim of the learned elites to intellectual and religious
leadership and thus challenges the monarchical monopoly on knowledge,58
the association of kings with scholars in Sargonid Assyria appears to have a
solely positive connotation, as it enhances the king’s operational capacities in
ruling his empire.59 In a bull inscription detailing the building of his new Pal-
ace-Without-Rival in Nineveh, Sennacherib extols himself in the following
terms:

56 See most recently Lenzi 2008a and 2008b with discussion of earlier bibliography.
57 Beaulieu 2007c, 161.
58 Ibid.
59 Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 310 f.
 The Trope of Abundance and Technical Expertise 285

Ninšiku (Ea) provided me with broad knowledge (karšu ritpašu) equal to the sage Adapa
(šinnat apkalli Adapa), he is the one who gave me sharp intelligence.60

In the same way, Sennacherib emphasizes his knowledge of bronze-casting in

his inscription related to the construction of the gates of the akītu house:

I constructed a red bronze gate, which as to its metal b[ands] was the work of the smith
god Ninagal, and of my own ingenuity … I assembled silver, gold and bronze in the form
of rings. I myself, as one who understands the matters involved, am capable of breaking
up utensils of silver, gold, and red bronze – from one thousand talents to one shekel, to
crush together and undertake their smelting.61

The royal effort to publicize the king’s personal technical knowledge and
achievements conflicts with the cultural norm that regarded cities and their
institutions as having originated in mythic times. In the above-cited statements
of Sennacherib, cultural reluctance to overtly accept and explicitly refer to any
kind of innovation or progress probably informs the respective coupling of the
king with the sage Adapa and the smith-god Ninagal. By connecting the king’s
achievements to these figures, the king is associated with the legitimate sour-
ces of the relevant skilled knowledge within ideological discourse and the
king’s personal claims are thus linked with the mythic past. Nonetheless, royal
discourse does reveal a growing tendency toward a form of self-reflection that
aims at historicizing the ideal paradigm of kingship and identifies that ideal
with incumbent kings.
This emphasis on technical expertise and enthusiasm for the detailed nar-
ration of technical accomplishments compares with the military accounts,
which convey relevant geographical information regarding past campaigns
with utmost precision and present long lists of the names of conquered cities,
sometimes accompanied by descriptions of their landscapes, flora and fauna,
and ethnic particularities. Since these geographical descriptions can include
additional information concerning the nature of the booty and tribute collected
for the Assyrian temples, they can be read as variations on the theme of the
king providing for the cult.
Interest in technical details was abandoned under Ashurbanipal, making
way for the trope of the king as learned scholar versed in divination. The theme
of abundance is disconnected from the successful application of hydraulic ex-
pertise and is instead entirely mythologized, with the gods taking center stage.

60 Luckenbill, OIP 2, 117:4.

61 K 1356, Pallis 1926 pls. 3 and 4; Luckenbill, OIP 2, 139 ff.; Livingstone NABU 1990/87; Pon-
gratz-Leisten 1994, 207 f.; Frahm 1997, T 183.
286 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

This is apparent in the introduction to one of Ashurbanipal’s most important

building inscriptions, Prism A:

Since Aššur, Sîn, Šamaš, Adad, Marduk, Nabû, Ištar of Nineveh, Šarrat-Kidmuri, Ištar of
Arbela, Ninurta, Nergal, and Nusku let me take a seat on the throne of my father, my
begetter, Adad, released the rains, Ea opened his springs, the grain grew in its furrows
five ells long, the ear grew 5/6 ells long, the crop prospered, abundance of Nisaba, the
grasslands grew steadily and abundantly, the orchards abounded in fruit, the cattle gave
birth easily. During my reign, abundance (hé-nun=nuhšu) and plenty (ṭuhdu), during my
years bountiful produce (hegallu) was heaped up.62

This reading of Assyrian royal inscriptions represents a slightly different take

on what Fales defined as the “positive position,” which regards their narrative
as a “particular mix of outright informative data, ideological biases, and liter-
ary alterations” that should be understood “in the light of a long-standing
stream of tradition and for preservation in future memory.”63 Assuming that
the narrative structure of these inscriptions follows a particular chaîne opéra-
toire that suits the ancient cosmology, I strongly suggest that they should be
read through the lens of myth and contextualized within their broader religious
framework, which anticipates the king’s assumption of the role of the victori-
ous warrior god Ninurta. All additional tropes or historical details should be
considered secondary insofar as these did not alter the primary message con-
tained in the plotline of the combat myth.

7.3 The chaîne opératoire of Royal Performance

and the Assyrian Enthusiasm for Detail
Tiglath-Pileser I (1114‒1076 BCE) was the first king to develop the formal struc-
ture of Assyrian royal inscriptions in a way that weaved together the tropes of
warfare, hunt, the building of the temple, and the resulting prosperity granted
by the gods into a sequence that formed a coherent and meaningful narrative.
This new compositional ‘architecture’64 or chaîne opératoire – to borrow a term
used by Marcel Mauss and his pupil André Leroi-Gourhan to conceptualize
technical processes and their social effects65 – was meant to demonstrate that

62 Borger 1996, Prism A i 41‒51.

63 Fales 1999‒2001, 138.
64 Fales 1999‒2001, 139.
65 Mauss 1935. I would like to thank Kim Benzel for drawing my attention to Mauss’ approach
to technology; see also Dobres 1999.
 The chaîne opératoire of Royal Performance 287

the occupant of the office of kingship had fulfilled his mission on all levels. In
this chaîne opératoire, the final trope of building the temple served as the key
metaphor that signaled the king’s successful reign over a community; this com-
munity was willingly subject to the civic order that the king established
through key actions such as the hunt, warfare, and righteous judgment. Royal
actions of this kind must thus be seen in the context of their ideological poten-
tial to shape and engender social and political communities, rather than being
reduced to the level of purely technical procedures.
Correct social organization, ideally brought about through royal agency,
enabled humankind to carry out the tasks of building the temple, excavating
the canals, and working the fields, the ultimate purpose of which was to con-
tribute to the proper cult of the gods. In other words, these royal actions must
be read from the perspective of their cultural value in the ancient weltanschau-
ung, i.e. as a royal response to the expectations attached to the office of king-
ship. This reading helps explain why in the visual arts, and especially on the
steles distributed throughout the empire, the Assyrian king is represented as a
priest rather than as a warrior or hunter. Similarly, at the end of scenes of
hunting and warfare the king is depicted libating over the slaughtered animal
or the subjugated foe. The pacification of the world was thought to be an ongo-
ing process, but royal representation emphasized both the process and the ide-
al outcome.
By reiterating the chaîne opératoire conceived by Tiglath-Pileser I in their
various commemorative and dedicatory inscriptions, the Assyrian kings dem-
onstrated that they had lived up to their duties and indicated to the gods that
their respective tenures merited divine support. Moreover, in a performative
manner the monarchs re-enacted the ongoing process of pacifying the world
and establishing the social order envisioned by normative cultural tradition.
By adhering to the customary plotline in their narratives, Assyrian kings also
transmitted the notion of the ideal “correct sequence of action” to their succes-
sors in written form. Indeed, it is precisely the “correct” sequential execution
of royal tasks that defined the Assyrian view of the practical knowledge associ-
ated with rulership. The king’s performance of the royal tasks rooted in cultural
memory and formulated in the Anzû Myth aligned him with his predecessors
and ultimately linked him back to the primeval period in which kingship
passed from heaven to earth. Hence, every king in one way or another promul-
gated this message in his inscriptions carefully, inscribing it on statues, steles,
or the walls of palaces and temples. The intention was to persuade the audi-
ence, which included the king’s successors and the gods themselves, that the
king had followed the proper course of action and carried out his duties.
Over time the royal inscriptions became more and more elaborate with re-
gard to information about geographical, historical, and technical savoir-faire,
288 The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

leading modern scholars to compare them to modern historiography. These

inscriptions cannot, however, meet modern historiographic standards as their
original intention has been misunderstood from the very outset. Because mod-
ern readers are oblivious to the fact that the geographical, historical, and tech-
nical details of the Assyrian royal inscriptions are embedded in the original
ideological chaîne opératoire that links them to the fulfillment of human and
divine expectations, Assyrian ideology has been regarded as merely manipula-
tive and propagandistic.66
I propose that these geographical, historical, and technical details should
be read as the tools with which kings identified themselves as individuals act-
ing at a particular moment in history. Although Assyrian kings as a type were
bound to a particular set of roles, individual kings used the particular data
of their reign to define and express their individuality and personhood. As
demonstrated by Mario Liverani in his seminal article on the variants in Sen-
nacherib’s epithets,67 this historicizing aspect was further apparent in the titu-
lary of the kings, which underwent constant changes according to historical
political situations. Variation, as Liverani stresses, was the result not only of
historical change, but – depending on context – could be functional; as such,
modern editions separating the historical section of inscriptions from their ded-
icatory section actually distort the broader picture.68
As already stated in Chapter Six, however, the plotline of royal inscriptions
should be read primarily in light of their mythic underpinnings69 and as testi-
mony to the fact that the relevant king had understood the mission of his office
and dutifully fulfilled the obligations prescribed by it. Accordingly, royal in-
scriptions are ceremonial and celebratory in nature.70 Modern research should
thus be concerned with investigating the variations within the plotline of a
particular royal inscription or, when striving to reconstruct the historicity of
certain events, with examining the historical details by comparison with infor-
mation drawn from text genres connected to daily practice.
In his examination of the Old Babylonian traditions regarding the Great
Rebellion against Narām-Sîn, Steve Tinney likewise rejects the “separation of
literary and historical texts on the basis of apparent veracity,” and concludes,
like Liverani, that texts can only be read within their own context.71 This con-

66 Tadmor 1997.
67 Liverani 1981.
68 Liverani 1981, 230.
69 See Chapter 6.3.
70 Oppenheim 1979.
71 Tinney 1995, 2.
 The chaîne opératoire of Royal Performance 289

clusion restates an observation made by Piotr Michalowski in the 1980s: “the

major corollary is the simple fact that the question of realism cannot be in-
voked in order to single out certain texts as historical, and therefore, somehow
‘real’ in opposition to those which one could, conceivably, label as ‘fictions.’
Texts are stories, or narratives, or whatever one may wish to call them, but
there is no way in which any verbal artifact can be said to be ultimately more
true than any other.”72
Michalowski’s assessment relies on the research of the historian Hayden
White, whose examination of the relevance of literary theory to historical stud-
ies led him to contend that “it is sometimes said that the aim of the historian
is to explain the past by ‘finding,’ ‘identifying’ or ‘uncovering’ the ‘stories’ that
lie buried in chronicles; and that the difference between ‘history’ and ‘fiction’
resides in the fact that the historian ‘finds’ his stories, whereas the fiction writ-
er ‘invents’ his. This conception of the historian’s task, however, obscures the
extent to which ‘invention’ also plays a part in the historian’s operations. The
same event can serve as a different kind of element of many different historical
stories, depending on the role it is assigned in a specific motific characteriza-
tion of the set to which it belongs.”73

72 Michalowski 1983, 237.

73 White 1973, 6‒7.
8 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary
8.1 The Tropological Discourse of Royal Inscriptions
A correct understanding of Assyrian ideological expression requires recogni-
tion of its highly metaphorical language and the epistemic function of myth as
laid out in Blumenberg’s monumental study Work on Myth.1 The combat myth
as a model of and for reality2 underpins all regicentric literature, including the
royal inscriptions; it was mediated through condensed icons such as that of
the Assyrian royal seal and the Assyrian battle scenes in palatial reliefs; and it
was staged in the performance of state rituals. Images of hunting and battle
scenes, royal texts – be they epics, hymns, heroic poems, or royal inscrip-
tions – and royal rituals all function as a kind of “phenotext”3 or “hypertext”4
of the original combat myth, which acts as a “charter myth,”5 “hypotext,”6 or
“conceptual metaphor.”7 In the words of Walter Burkert: “a myth, qua tale, is
not identical with any given text.”8
Myth should not be dismissed as an archaic mentality, but rather re-intro-
duced as a pragmatic analytical category9 governing all media within Assyrian
ideological discourse. Any literary royal text, image, or ritual must therefore
be analyzed not only as a narrative in itself but also in its intertextual relation-
ship with other cultural forms of expression and with “myth” as the “hypo-
text.” As formulated by Lakoff and Johnson, “the essence of metaphor is under-
standing and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”10 According
to the narratologist Tzvetan Todorov,11 the story-discourse distinction – the dis-
tinction between content and how the story is told – directs our attention to
the level of presentation and to the arrangement and treatment of events, deep-

1 Blumenberg 1985. See also Markus May’s study on myth as a referential system in Aristotle’s
work, May 2004.
2 Lincoln 1989.
3 Burkert 1979.
4 Genette 1997.
5 Malinowski 1926.
6 Genette 1997.
7 Here I expand the notion of metaphor as developed by cognitive linguists Lakoff and John-
son 1980 into the realm of myth as a Denkform; see further Blumenberg 1985.
8 Burkert 1982, 3.
9 Kiening 2004.
10 Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 14. In this context see also Rolf Kreyer’s discussion of Hans
Ulrich Gumbrecht’s notion of “presence,” Kreyer 2012.
11 Todorov 1966.
 The Tropological Discourse of Royal Inscriptions 291

ening our understanding of the particular plotline chosen in a given royal in-
scription. These plotlines involve the pacification of the world (= military ac-
count + hunting account) in order to demonstrate the king’s legitimacy and his
merit, which permit him to restore or build the temples and to take care of the
cult (= building account). Having acted successfully in both respects, the king
is entitled to record his deeds in writing as a message to posterity and the gods
(blessing and curse formulas).
Mesopotamian royal inscriptions represent various truths and intentionali-
ties, necessitating a multilayered reading. One level is represented by topo-
graphic, geographic, and onomastic references, as well as information about
the itinerary of a given campaign and lists of booty, which can be credited with
truthfulness in terms of event history. Assyrian royal inscriptions in particular
are frequently characterized by detailed information regarding the geography,
fauna, flora, and people of conquered regions. Together with the stylistic for-
mat of the report this interest in comprehensive description can be considered
an example of what Wolfgang Iser calls the “concealment of fictionality,”12 i.e.
the claim of the text to be an expression of reality. Such masking of reality is,
as Iser suggests, itself a literary device. The relevant event history is, however,
integrated into a narrative through emplotment according to the terms of the
combat myth and through other literary and thought patterns. The emplotment
of the narrative within the framework of the combat myth as represented by
the Ninurta mythology constitutes the second level at which royal inscriptions
should be read and carries an intentional truth, i.e. the ideological message of
the king securing the civic and cosmic order.13 Tropological discourse in the
royal inscriptions is not limited to the trope of the king as successful warrior
and provider for the temple, but structures their narrative as a whole.
Consequently, Assyrian historiography is more than a mere narrative of
historical phenomena encompassing events, persons, processes, and institu-
tions. Since the Ninurta mythology dominates the plot structure of royal in-
scriptions, Assyrian historiography should be read as a discourse in tropologi-
cal terms with the combat myth as the central metaphor framing royal action.
It is by means of their converging presentation in myth and historical inscrip-
tion that events were endowed with meaning and truth.14 As stated by Hayden
White, the notion of tropological discourse “strikes at the very conception of
factuality, and especially at historians’ claims regarding the factual truthful-
ness not only of their statements about particular events but of their discourse

12 Iser 1993, 12.

13 For a similar analysis of the reading process see Liverani 1973, 181.
14 See White 1999, 10 ff. on tropological discourse.
292 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

as a whole. If a factual statement is not only a singular existential proposition

cast in literal language but such a proposition plus the implied conventions
for determining what shall count as literal and what as figurative in that propo-
sition, then such statements can no longer be taken at their face value.”15 Di-
chotomies such as literal/figurative, fictional/factual, and referentional/inten-
tional are consequently counterproductive in the reading of royal inscriptions,
the logic of which falls between these two extremes.
Such a reading further undermines the view that the Assyrian royal inscrip-
tions were basically devoid of historiographical scope or that they served mere-
ly propagandistic purposes as royal self-celebrations.16 In ideological terms,
the king’s access and loyalty to tradition identified him as the guarantor of the
cosmic order and as the legitimate occupant of the office of kingship.17 More-
over, the king gained authority in the present by actively participating in the
cosmic order and reiterating cultural meaning by undertaking actions that be-
fitted the royal office.18 His authority was primarily based on his adherence
to mythological paradigms and to his fictitious role as Ninurta. The Ninurta
mythology served as the most relevant backdrop for the construction of the
king’s individual image and for the plotline of the narrative of his deeds. Simul-
taneously, by combining reality in the form of historical, technical, and geo-
graphical details with the overall mythic plot, i.e. through the operation of
mythic “emplotment,”19 the king not only reactualized and reshaped the past
in light of the present, but also defined his individual legacy by presenting an
interpretation of his achievements that conformed to the mythic ideal of the
warrior king.

15 White 1999, 15.

16 Ibid.
17 See a similar discussion by Anderson 2009 on how the ancient Greeks related to their past.
18 In a similar vein Renger 2003 already emphasizes the literary quality of the Assyrian royal
inscriptions of the 8th and 7th centuries BCE and their interconnectedness with the epic, mythi-
cal, and scholarly traditions, as is evident in their use of Standard Babylonian language, the
coincidence of the written line and syntactic units, and the common use of rare vocabulary.
Such a close connection to literary production is already apparent in the inscriptions of Ham-
murabi and Samsuiluna, for instance, which also feature elements of the Hymnic-Epical Dia-
lect (HED), see Renger 1980‒83, 68 § 4). As discussed by Marcia Anne Dobres, this unfolding
of the continuous process of becoming in technical production and in the establishment of
cultural meaning was the concern of Mauss in his approach to technology, see Dobres 1999, 127,
which can be applied with some modification to the chain of argument followed in Assyrian
inscriptions.
19 White 1999.
 The Tropological Discourse of Royal Inscriptions 293

The descriptive, historicizing aspect of Assyrian royal inscriptions de-

scribed above appears in relation to military campaigns20 and eventually
makes its way into the iconography of Assyrian steles. Through to the Sargonid
period, Assyrian kings fulfilled certain conventions by presencing their
achievements in the textual record: by demonstrating their successful perfor-
mance of the actions associated with the combat myth, kings asserted that they
had met the expectations that came with the royal office. The same approach
is apparent in the visual medium of the royal stele. To name but a few exam-
ples, the pictorial representations of Aššurnaṣirpal II (883‒859 BCE), Shalma-
neser III’s Kurkh Monolith (858‒824 BCE), Adad-nīrārī III’s (809‒782 BCE) stele
from Tell Rimah, and Tiglath-Pileser III’s (744‒727 BCE) Iran Stele all follow
the same paradigm. These steles depict the king in the gesture of prayer, com-
municating with the gods who are represented above him in the form of their
symbols (fig. 50). With the exception of the king’s robe and his (optional) neck-
lace,21 these steles are largely standardized and do not depict any features that
suggest an individualized representation of history.22
In Esarhaddon’s Zinçirli and Til Barsip steles,23 by contrast, the king is
depicted together with the crown prince Ashurbanipal and the governor of
Babylon Šamaš-šum-ukīn in an uncharacteristic triumvirate that is specific to
the particular historical circumstances of Esarhaddon’s reign (fig. 51). These
steles also revive the image of Ištar holding the enemy by the nose-rope, which
is known from the Anu-banini rock relief, but now it is Esarhaddon himself
who assumes the role of the goddess in the iconography. Of further interest in
these steles is the historically particular depiction of Esarhaddon’s enemies in
their relationship with the Assyrian king: Zinçirli was an Assyrian vassal and
Til Barsip was an important provincial center along the route toward the Medi-
terranean. While Til Barsip was at one point a center of Aramean resistance to
Assyrian expansion, it was subsequently Assyrianized culturally. The depic-
tions of Abdi-Milkutti, the Phoenician rebel whose revolt Esarhaddon sup-
pressed in 677 BCE, and of the Egyptian king, who is recognizable by his Nubi-

20 Zaccagnini 1982.
21 Reade 2005, 11.
22 This is not to say that the depiction of the king in communication cannot take on other
forms; an outstanding example of this is Aššurnaṣirpal II’s (883‒859 BCE) relief in his North-
west Palace in Nimrud. Located behind the pedestal in his throne room, this relief depicts the
king at the side of the sacred tree, communicating with Aššur in the winged disk. In contrast
to the iconography of the steles, here the king is represented in his role as the steward of Aššur
and the position of kingship is reserved for the god himself, see Winter 1983, 26 ff. and Pon-
gratz-Leisten 2011b.
23 Porter 2003c.
294 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

Fig. 50: Stele of Adad-nīrārī III from Tell Rimah (Orthmann 1975, fig. 212).
 The Tropological Discourse of Royal Inscriptions 295

Fig. 51: Zinçirli Stele (Photo and Drawing after Porter 2003b, pls. 28 and 29).

an features, signal the “elimination of Egypt as Assyria’s last significant chal-

lenger for control of the west,”24 and were meant to remind the two cities of
Zinçirli and Til Barsip that their western colleague had been defeated. Whereas
in the Til Barsip stele the two enemy kings are represented almost as Assyrians
and with a certain dignity, in the Zinçirli stele in Samʾal they are depicted in
the style of Samʾalian princes, approximating the local ethnic identity of the
vassal in that region. Additionally, the enemy kings are much smaller than
their Assyrian counterpart, and their “heads are thrown back so that they ap-
pear to look beseechingly at the face of the impervious Assyrian king. In an
ironic twist, the scribe who laid out the text left large spaces in this line so that

24 Porter 2003c, 71.

296 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

the word ‘Aššur’ is incised neatly on the upturned pointed beard of the Phoeni-
cian captive, as if labeling him as Assyrian property.”25

8.2 The Dual-Focus Pattern of the Assyrian Epic

Although it is informed by the Ninurta mythology, and although it shares with
the royal inscriptions the historical framework of a campaign that actually hap-
pened including the historical figures of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings,
the Assyrian royal epic – in contrast to the royal inscriptions – is never domi-
nated solely by the emplotment of the combat myth. As is apparent in the
Middle Assyrian royal epics of Adad-nīrārī I and Tukultī-Ninurta I, the topos of
the king’s normative behavior in his dealings with the gods served other impor-
tant plotlines as well. One of these is the Assyrian king’s adherence to the
stipulations of treaties concluded under the surveillance of the gods, which
the enemy king is said to transgress. The implications of the treaty motif were
negotiated in myth before this motif made its way into Assyrian epic literature.
In one section, the Etana Myth attests to the central role of Šamaš as witness
to the swearing of oaths. This passage is preserved in full only in the Neo-
Assyrian version of the Etana Myth, but fragments of the Old Babylonian and
Middle Assyrian versions attest to the fact that it formed part of much earlier
cultural discourse. The late version reads as follows:

[The serpent] made ready to speak, [saying to the eagle],

“[If indeed?] … of friendship and [ ]
“[Then? Let us swear a] mighty [oath of Šamaš],
“A villainy of the gods, [an abomination you have committed],
“Come then, let us set forth [ ],26
“Let us swear [an oath] by the netherworld.”
Before Šamaš the warrior they swo[re] the oath,
“Whoever transgresses] the limits of Šamaš [ ],
“May Šamaš [deliver him] as an offender into the hands of the executioner,
“Whoever [transgresses] the limits of Šamaš,
“May the [mountains] remove [their pas]ses far away from him,
“May the oncoming weapon [make straight for him],
“May the trap and curse of Šamaš overthrow him [and hunt him down]!”27

25 Porter 2003c, 75 f.
26 Foster 2005, 545 reconstructs “Come then, let us set forth [and go up a high mountain];”
I think, however, that the focus remains on the taking of the oath. Wilson 1985, l. 14 translates:
“Come, let us indemnify ourselves [ ],” a meaning that is otherwise not attested for zaqāpu.
AHw III, 1513, s.v.zaqāpu N translates “(lass uns) zum Aufbruch (aufrichten).”
27 Foster 2005, 545 and Novotny 2001, 17.
 The Dual-Focus Pattern of the Assyrian Epic 297

The treaty motif as negotiated in myth is the major theme of the Tukultī-Ninurta
Epic. It dominates not only Tukultī-Ninurta’s account of his dealings with the
Babylonian king, but also determines the different relationships between the
Assyrian and Babylonian kings and their respective gods. Tukultī-Ninurta is
depicted as the beneficiary of divine support on account of his conscientious
conformance to the terms of the treaty sworn before Šamaš and the gods,
whereas the Babylonian king’s betrayal of the emblem of Šamaš arouses the
anger of his gods, who subsequently abandon him. With its dual-focus pat-
tern,28 the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic is one of the few texts that elaborates on the
behavior of both the king and his opponent, providing us with an idea of what
the enemy’s treacherous behavior implied in the Assyrian weltanschauung. The
contrastive description of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings also plays out in
their divergent approaches to armed confrontation. Tukultī-Ninurta I does not
go to war with Kaštiliaš IV until he sends him a formal declaration of intent
based on the stipulations of the treaty. This stands in stark contrast with Kašti-
liaš IV’s unannounced provocations against Assyria, and Machinist notes that
“in the declaration, the Assyrian documents his charge that Kaštiliaš has vio-
lated their treaty, and then proclaims that he is reading out the tablet of the
original agreement to the divine overseer of such matters, Šamaš. The god’s
verdict he concludes, will emerge from an ordeal of battle between the treaty
partners, in which the winner will be the one who remained faithful to the
treaty.”29
The turning point in the narrative, as Machinist recognizes, is the Assyrian
king’s declaration and accusation, which later comes to represent the summary
statement legitimizing the king’s military actions in the royal inscriptions. With
its emphasis on the contractual relationship between the two kings on the ba-
sis of a treaty witnessed by the gods, the Middle Assyrian epic articulates for
the first time the rhetoric that determines the king’s justification for going to
war in much later royal inscriptions. The behavior of the opponent is character-
ized by notions of “crime, sin” (gillatu), “trickiness, evil” (pašuqtu), and “of-
fense, act of malice, sin” (šērtu).30
In the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, the literary themes or topoi concerning the jus-
tification of battle and the behavioral patterns of the good (Assyrian) and bad
(Babylonian) king – including the treaty-motif – are developed at length and
in highly literary language. This literary language is replete with rare words
and indicates that the text is the product of a learned scholar steeped in both

28 Altman 2008, 316.

29 Machinist 1976, 458.
30 Machinist, TKN Epic “vi” 24.
298 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

Babylonian and Assyrian tradition. Although these metaphors and literary to-
poi also inform royal inscriptions, they feature only as abbreviations in a con-
densed and perfunctory fashion. Indeed, when describing the Assyrian king’s
motivation for embarking on military campaigns the enemy king’s treacherous
behavior is sometimes condensed in the simplified motif of the lie (sarru, sarā-
ru),31 which omits any description of the specifics regarding a given enemy’s
violation of a treaty. Moreover, in contrast to the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic royal
inscriptions are single-focused, centering on the action of the Assyrian king
without accounting for the thought processes of enemies and assigning them a
passive and often even anonymous role. In this presentation, the enemy king’s
transgression was ultimately considered a sin against the gods.
The dual-focus pattern elaborated in such detail in the Middle Assyrian
Tukultī-Ninurta Epic reappears to some degree in the royal inscriptions of the
Sargonid period – particularly in Sargon II’s highly literary account of his
Eighth Campaign. In this account, the Assyrian king credits his adversary, king
Rusa of Urartu, with observing the unwritten but still effective rules regulating
the behavior of adversary kings of equal status in times of war. Sargon II men-
tions that Rusa had sent him a formal message asking him to engage in battle,
but then proceeds to meditate at length about his own pious and correct ob-
servance of diplomatic agreements, raising our suspicions as to the veracity of
his account:32

Sargon II’s Eighth Campaign 110‒12533

110 he felt himself eager to contest with me on the battlefield, and, preparing
remorselessly a strategy for the destruction of the army of Enlil and Aššur,
111 he drew up a battle line at all the mountain regions and sent me a messenger
(with a challenge) to attack and to mingle in battle.
112 I, Sargon, king of the four corners, shepherd of the land of Aššur, who observes
the solemn oath of Enlil and Marduk, who heeds the judgment of Šamaš
113 seed of Aššur, of the city of knowledge and broad understanding, who attends
reverently the commands of the great gods and does not approach/transgress
their designs,
114 that legitimate king who speaks only propitious words, to whom treachery is a
taboo, whose mouth utters nothing wicked or destructive,
115 the wisest ruler in the universe, who had been created with intellectual capacity
and intelligence in decision-making, who holds in his hands the reverence of the
gods and goddesses,

31 Pongratz-Leisten 2002.
32 Note that Oppenheim 1960, 137‒139 prefers to interpret the enemy king’s behavior as a
cultural trait alien to Assyrian war practice.
33 My translation attempts to be more literal in some parts than that of Foster 2005, 797 f.
 The Dual-Focus Pattern of the Assyrian Epic 299

116 to Aššur, king of all the great gods, lord of the lands, begetter of the “Mighty
One,”34 king of all the great gods, who keeps in check the four corners of the
world,
117 almighty lord of Aššur, who in the prodigious fury of his wrath grinds up the
sovereigns of the entire world and crushes their bodies,
118 that sublime warrior from whom whose battle snare the evil-doer has no escape,
who demolishes anyone who has not revered an oath to him,
119 (120) who charges furiously in the clash of battle, (119) against anyone who has
not revered his name, or anyone who has trusted in his strength alone, or anyone
who has forgotten the greatness of his divinity, or anyone who boasts
vaingloriously,
120 shattering his weapons and evaporating his formations into the winds,
121 (however), the one who observes the verdict (šipṭi) of the gods and trusts in the
favorable judgment (ana damqi dēn dUTU) of Šamaš and reveres the divinity of
Aššur, Enlil of the gods,
122 he (Aššur) makes his fierce axes go at his side and establishes him in victory
over his enemies and foes;
123 because, indeed, I had never transgressed the boundaries of Rusa the Urartian
(that delimit) the frontiers of his extensive territory, nor had I shed the blood of
his warriors,
124 I raised my hands (in prayer) that in the midst of battle, he (Aššur) bring about
his downfall, that the aggressiveness of his mouth may turn against him and
make him bear his punishment.
125 Aššur, my lord, heard my just discourse (atmāya ša mīšari), it pleased him. He
turned favorably to my petition for cosmic order (kittu) and granted my prayer.

After laying out in detail his correct behavior, at the end of this passage Sar-
gon II links himself to the notion of cosmic order (kittu) in order to present
himself as a model of the ideal king.35 The dual-focus pattern of Sargon II’s
Eight Campaign is also characteristic of Esarhaddon’s Apology, which is dis-
cussed in Chapter Nine, though in that text the contenders for the throne are
not explicitly named and the nature of their misdeeds (epšētišunu lemnēti) re-
mains undefined. Despite swearing an oath of loyalty to Esarhaddon, the con-
tenders for the throne are said to have schemed evil (ikappudū lemuttu I 25;
ikpudū lemuttu I 42).
These examples from the Middle Assyrian and Sargonid periods substanti-
ate the view that irrespective of their dual- or single-focus pattern, the inten-
tionality of both royal epics and royal inscriptions was to promote the image
of the Assyrian king as acting in accordance with the rules and norms of inter-
national diplomacy and warfare.

34 Here I follow the reading of Foster, who reads [gaš]-ru in line with the Anzû Myth rather
than [gim-ru], Mayer 1983, 78 l. 116.
35 For a discussion of Sargon II’s Eight Campaign see further Chapter 9.2.
300 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

8.3 The Fictive and the Imaginary: Myth versus Legend and
Royal Inscriptions
Despite the presence of Assyrianisms, like myth, legends, and historical-liter-
ary texts, royal inscriptions were written in the literary Standard Babylonian
dialect, a choice that is essential to their categorization. From the point of view
of the text producers, therefore, these various text categories – however dis-
tinct their plotlines – were considered to belong to one large group that we
might call literary texts. Additionally, these text categories are characterized
by fictionalizing acts of selection, combination, and self-disclosure intimating
the “as-if” world, and are all based on intentionality.36 In all genres the denota-
tive function is, to various extents, “made subservient to the figurative one,”
and “the dual nature of the presented world moves into focus: it is concrete
enough to be perceived as a world and, simultaneously, figures as an analogue
exemplifying, through a concrete specimen, what is to be conceived.”37 In all
genres the relation between fact and fiction is redefined and factuality becomes
a matter of “descriptive protocols.”38
Accordingly, the notion of authenticity introduced by A. K. Grayson as a
method for distinguishing between royal inscriptions and historical-literary
texts on the basis that the former were composed at the king’s command while
the latter were written at the initiative of the scribes39 is not useful – particular-
ly because the texts can reveal the same fundamental emplotment, which
might be enriched by other plotlines in line with their genre, and because all
these genres are linked intertextually and were the products of the same scribal
circles. Nonetheless, while fictionality in terms of Hayden White’s literary theo-
ry applies to any of the texts under scrutiny, the genres of myth, royal epic,
and royal inscriptions still differ in their conception of factuality. Although
royal inscriptions, royal imagery, and state ritual are governed by the combat
myth as “charter myth,” and might use similar narrative techniques, they re-
tain their distinctiveness vis-à-vis mythological, legendary, and poetic litera-
ture, which equally revolve around the figure of the warrior king.
In this context, Iser’s notion of the imaginary as the third element in a triad
with the real and the fictive constitutes a productive conceptual framework, as

36 For fictionalizing acts in constructing a represented world see Iser 1993, 1‒21.
37 Iser 1993, 15.
38 White 1999, 18
39 Grayson 1975a, 2b and 1975b, 7 n. 9. Haul’s recent distinction between authentic, feigned
(“fingiert”), and fictive texts does not persuade, Haul 2009, 133‒135, as it presupposes the
notion of faking, a notion that seems inappropriate in defining the intentionality of the ancient
texts.
 The Fictive and the Imaginary: Myth versus Legend and Royal Inscriptions 301

it allows the maintenance of the notion of fictionality for all text genres.40 Al-
though Iser’s discussion is not concerned with historiography and focuses ex-
clusively on literature, his notion of the imaginary can inform our distinction
between the two in a modified way. The fictive transformation of reality
through an “as-if” construction applies to all our genres, but it is the transgres-
sion of the borders of what is familiar – the experience of the imaginary as
described in myth dealing with imaginary events and imaginary actors – that
distinguishes legendary and mythic texts from royal inscriptions and historical
epic. Textual elements that index the ‘impossible’ or the ‘unreal’ stimulate af-
fective reactions in the reader and thus distinguish the legendary and mythic
texts from royal inscriptions and historical epics, in which the primary refer-
ents are tied to reality. In the Cuthean Legend, the enemy has a partridge body
and raven face and is suckled by the primordial goddess Tiāmat.41 Such el-
ements exceed the boundaries of experience and trigger an imaginative reac-
tion that creates an imaginary world in the reader’s mind, constituting an ana-
logue to the representation of the enemy both in reality and in the fictive royal
inscriptions. The transgression of the borders of what is familiar in literary
texts discloses their “as-if” character even when the referents in a given myth
or legend are “historical” kings or events. As such, despite the fact that Narām-
Sîn was a real figure, the Cuthean Legend’s self-disclosure as fictive lets its
readers know how it should be read. Applying the insights of literary theory as
developed by Hayden White and Wolfgang Iser to our texts thus provides us
with a framework that allows us to categorize the fictitious as bound to emplot-
ment and the imaginary which draws on myth as bound to the experience of
the counter-intuitive.
Literary texts other than royal inscriptions are, moreover, much richer in
their choice of various topoi and themes. The Cuthean Legend refers explicitly
to the written text as a medium for transmitting the king’s personal experience
and knowledge to posterity, a topos that also appears in the Gilgameš Epic. The
“Open the Tablet-Box” theme, i.e. leaving behind a written text as a monument
to future rulers, frames the narrative of the Cuthean Legend in its beginning
and end; at the text’s conclusion, scholars are identified as the agents in the
process of transmission. This framework is embellished by the introduction of
a second account concerning a legendary predecessor, the king Enmerkar, who
is criticized for failing to record his experiences for posterity and thus functions
to demonstrate the importance of leaving behind written testimony to Narām-

40 Pace Haul 2009, who seems to have misunderstood my distinction between truth claim
and reality in discussing the fictionality of legends and royal inscriptions.
41 Westenholz 1997, 308‒309, ll. 31‒34.
302 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

Sîn. The account of Narām-Sîn’s own experiences then forms the third and
central layer of the narrative.
Moreover, the Cuthean Legend and the Curse of Akkad, for instance, intro-
duce the notion of royal failure due to disrespect of the gods, a theme conspic-
uously absent from the royal inscriptions. Another plotline related to the king’s
relationship with the gods concerns his observance or disregard of omens. In
the Cuthean Legend, the king’s obedience to the will of the gods as expressed
through omens determines his success and the welfare of both his reign and
his country. Interestingly, the performance of extispicy before a military cam-
paign also occurs in the Middle Assyrian poem The Hunter (discussed in Chap-
ter Six), and only appears in the rhetoric of the royal inscriptions in the much
later Sargonid period. It should further be noted that in the Tukultī-Ninurta
Epic, it is the enemy king Kaštiliaš IV to whom his own gods refuse to give
favorable omens. Further, legends, historical-literary texts, and poems can deal
with maltreatment of temples, a behavior that elicits divine wrath. This theme
is negotiated in the Sumerian poem of the Curse of Akkad 42 and in the much
later Babylonian Nabû-šuma-iškun Epic.43 At particular moments in history,
myth and royal hymns introduce new tropes of the king as culture hero, as is
the case in the Sumerian composition Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, which
attributes the invention of writing to King Enmerkar of Uruk.44 Royal hymns
from the Ur III period through to the Isin-Larsa period sometimes praise the
king for being conversant in various languages, for possessing all kinds of
skills, and for being expert in the traditional body of scholarly knowledge, a
trope that appears in the literary text Sin of Sargon, which was composed under

42 Cooper 1983b.
43 Cole 1994.
44 “His speech was substantial, and its contents extensive. The messenger, whose mouth was
heavy, was not able to repeat it. Because the messenger, whose mouth was tired, was not able
to repeat it, the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message as if on a tablet.
Formerly, the writing of messages on clay was not established. Now, under that sun and on
that day, it was indeed so. The lord of Kulaba inscribed the message like a tablet. It was just
like that. The messenger was like a bird, flapping its wings; he raged forth like a wolf following
a kid. He traversed five mountains, six mountains, seven mountains. He lifted his eyes as he
approached Aratta. He stepped joyfully into the courtyard of Aratta, he made known the au-
thority of his king. Openly he spoke out the words in his heart. The messenger transmitted the
message to the lord of Aratta.” Quoted after ETCSL t.1.8.2.3; see also Vanstiphout 2003. Note
that in contrast to the legendary kings Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh, Enmerkar was neither dei-
fied nor venerated. Old Babylonian tradition classified him under ill-famed kings because he
had allegedly not written down his experiences on a stele to be read by a future ruler, see
Westenholz 1997, 264 and Selz 2008. My thanks to Gebhard Selz who allowed me to read his
unpublished manuscript.
 The Fictive and the Imaginary: Myth versus Legend and Royal Inscriptions 303

Esarhaddon, and then surfaces in the royal inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668‒

631/27? BCE) and much later in those of Nabonidus (555‒539 BCE). The intro-
duction in Sargonid royal inscriptions of the motif comparing the king to the
antediluvian sage Adapa can be considered a revival of the trope of the king as
culture hero, and is reflective of the process whereby epic or mythic literature
articulated particular motifs before they found their way into the commemora-
tive inscriptions.
In some instances, myth explores the psychological experience of a hero,
“progressively and deliberately achieving a portrait that is unique and non-
transferable.”45 Myth can also reverse the sequential chain of gestures, as is
the case in the first millennium version of the Gilgameš Epic. Whereas the Old
Babylonian Gilgameš Epic praises Gilgameš as warrior, the first millennium
version extols him on account of his extraordinary experiences. Further, the
first millennium Gilgameš Epic invokes the trope that it is the king’s duty to
inform future generations of his experiences in written form and then, without
referencing Gilgameš’s military achievements, praises him as the builder of
Uruk’s city wall:

He built the wall of Uruk-the-Sheepfold,

Of holy Eanna, the pure storehouse.
See its wall which is like a strand of wool,
view its parapet which nobody can replicate!
Take the stairway that has been there since ancient times,
And draw near to Eanna, the seat of Ištar,
that no later king can replicate, nor any man.
Go up on to the wall of Uruk and walk around,
survey the foundation platform, inspect the brickwork!
(See) if its brickwork is not kiln-fired brick,
and if the Seven Sages did not lay its foundations!
[One šār is] city, [one šār] date-grove, one šār is clay-pit, half a šār the temple of Ištar:
[three šār] and a half (is) Uruk, (its) measurement.46

As discussed in Chapter Four, the Sumero-Babylonian-Assyrian weltanschau-

ung assigned agency for the foundation of cities to the gods in mythic times.
Curiously, in the Gilgameš Epic the city plan of Uruk is in principle attributed
to Gilgameš, even though mythical ancestry in the guise of the Seven Sages is
claimed for the sacred precinct of Inanna’s temple and its staircase. Gilgameš
is clearly envisioned as the legendary model king, and he is grouped with the
Seven Sages and distinguished from later kings. The Gilgameš Epic thus follows

45 Sasson 2005, 230.

46 George 2003, 538‒539 i 11‒23.
304 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

the cultural tradition expressed in the Sumerian King List, which credits Gil-
gameš with a 125 year reign and counts him among the legendary kings.47 As-
sociating the king with the Seven Sages is a literary device that reappears dur-
ing the reigns of Sennacherib and his successors, who compare themselves to
the sage Adapa.48
In contrast to the narrative logic of the royal inscriptions, however, the
plotline of myth can proceed with acts that might be unmotivated or unreason-
able in themselves, provided that they are “effective in setting up the explana-
tion of the ensuing acts. The characters accomplish (or undergo) without any
surprise the most improbable and strange things, which are impossible to pre-
dict or justify. But there is a coherent line that runs throughout the narrative
and culminates at its conclusion.”49
While some of the various motifs described above appear in royal inscrip-
tions along with their plotlines, they never determine the character and struc-
ture of the overall narrative in the way that the emplotment of the combat myth
does. Further, Assyrian epic literature sometimes includes other literary forms
such as the royal praise or the penitential psalm, as is the case in the Tukultī-
Ninurta Epic. These literary forms only appear again in late Sargonid royal in-
scriptions like those of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal,50 when the distinction
between royal inscriptions and mythic narratives became ever more blurred.
Accordingly, the distinction between royal inscriptions, epics, and legends
can be described in terms of the different use of or weight assigned to particu-
lar tropes and plotlines, i.e. the different relationships between historical inter-
pretation and literary representation. Or, to apply the categories developed by
the historian Jörn Rüsen, “retrospectivity, perspectivity, selectivity, and par-
ticularity,”51 can be weighted differently in different narratives. Rüsen’s catego-
ries embrace the following concepts: the approach to empirical facts deter-
mined by projections into the future (retrospectivity), the relationship between
past and present determined by the author’s standing in a particular social

47 ETCSL 2.2.1 112‒115.

48 This grouping of the kings with Adapa is typical of the Sargonid period and could consti-
tute further evidence in favor of the redaction of the 12 tablet version of the Gilgamesh Epic in
the Sargonid period, as originally suggested by Frahm 1999 for other reasons.
49 Liverani 2004, 6.
50 In his discussion of epic as genre Richard Martin 2005 suggests a communicative approach
to epic instead of a formal definition based on content or style, as epic can “interact with and
incorporate all these forms” – myth, folktale, wisdom proverbs, and praise poetry, see also
Gilan 2010, 51.
51 Rüsen 2005, 66. Note that Rüsen still argues in favor of the historian’s objectivity despite
the fact that all of these aspects speak against the notion of objectivity.
 The Dynamics of Literary Textual Production and Assyrian Royal Discourse 305

context at a particular historical moment (perspectivity), the norms and values

determining the selection of facts (selectivity), and the way historical know-
ledge is related to identity building through historical memory (particularity).
Annals and epics were both produced to justify real-life events and to magnify
their historical importance.52 Both utilized structures of meaning-production
that were ultimately aimed at preserving and disseminating the fame of the
king, making use of the past in order to anchor the king in a continuum of
space and time.

8.4 The Dynamics of Literary Textual Production and

Assyrian Royal Discourse
The preceding discussion of the commonalities and discrepancies between roy-
al inscriptions and other literary texts relevant to the emergence of Assyrian
cultural discourse reveals the following development: in Pre-Sargonic Lagaš
and during the following Akkad period, the narrative of the royal inscriptions
focused primarily on the martial role of the king. During the process of literary
re-invention that took place in the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian kings
Sargon and Narām-Sîn emerged as the charismatic protagonists of legends that
described their forays into and conquests of far distant regions; additionally,
these two kings developed into paradigms for a discourse in which the figure
of the king functioned as a model of human experience. It is this context that
produced great legends and myths like the Cuthean Legend, King of Battle, the
Gilgameš Epic, the Etana Myth, and the Akkadian Anzû Myth. Enūma eliš and
the Erra Epic can be considered the climax of those literary works that negoti-
ate the notion of leadership and the justification of warfare.
From the Middle Assyrian period onward, then, the Old Babylonian leg-
ends along with the Anzû Myth, the Etana Myth and the Gilgameš Epic provided
the effective background and model for the behavior of individual kings in
royal literature, which includes royal hymns, royal epics, and royal inscrip-
tions. In an expression of a creative and imaginative Assyrian adaptation of
the longstanding Sumero-Babylonian repertoire of tropes centered on the insti-
tution of kingship, Assyrian royal inscriptions integrate these tropes into their
coherent narrative, whose plotline complements the combat myth and hunter
poems with the trope of the king as legitimate builder, restorer, and provider

52 Bachvarova 2010, 70 applies this only to epic literature in the Hittite tradition; I suggest
that we can include so-called annalistic literature in this kind of interpretation, at least in the
Assyrian tradition.
306 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

of the temple. The ideological emphasis in royal inscriptions is clearly on the

king’s heroic and conscientious performance of his duties on behalf of the god
Aššur. Written on tablets buried in foundation deposits and on the reliefs dis-
played on temple walls, royal inscriptions function as performative devices –
along with imagery – that aim to persuade posterity and the divine audience
of the king’s successful tenure of his office.

8.5 Making an Argument: The Intertextuality of

Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule
I close my discussion with some final remarks on myth as an analytical catego-
ry and its intertextuality with royal inscriptions. Myth as a referential system
functioned in two ways in the cultural discourse of Mesopotamia. First, myth
could act as the hidden text or matrix53 that informed royal inscriptions and
royal rituals without necessarily representing a definitive and canonized pre-
text. Although myth informed the general narrative of royal ideological dis-
course, myth as tropological discourse was condensed, reworked, and re-actu-
alized in the historical image, text, and ritual – thus fulfilling a structural and
descriptive model function.54 These aspects have been discussed throughout
this book. Second, myth – or rather the act of mythologizing – can be regarded
as an erudite literary practice in the production of historical inscriptions. In
this case, the intertextuality between myth and historical inscriptions works
through direct literary allusions or quotations.55 As the preserve of high cul-
ture, such literary allusions reveal not only the pervasiveness of myth in the
cultural discourse, situating it in an intertextual space, but also reflect the
voice of the scholar as the invisible agent who fashions the royal narrative
centering on the king’s body politic. In literary theory any text is regarded as
being situated in a web of other signifying systems56 and is therefore the prod-
uct of cultural discourse.57 Thus for Roland Barthes each text is a “chambre

53 Riffaterre 1985.
54 May 2004, 140.
55 See Genette 1997, 1‒7 for five types of “transtextuality” including intertextuality (allusion,
quotiation), paratextuality (title, subtitle, prefaces, etc.), metatextuality (commentary), archi-
textuality (types opf discourse, modes of enunciation, literary genres), and hyptertextuality
uniting a hypertext B with a hypotext A through a prcess of transformation see Genette 1997,
1‒7.
56 Kristeva 1980.
57 Greenblatt 1990; Genette 1997; Vanstiphout 2000.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 307

d’échos”58 that extends the notion of intertextuality into intermediality: “l’in-

tertexte n’est pas forcément en champs d’influences; c’est plutôt une musique
de figures, de metaphors, de pensées-mots; c’est le significant comme si-
rène.”59 For Riffattere, the “very idea of textuality” is “inseparable from and
founded upon intertextuality.”60
In Assyria, however, not every royal inscription exhibits the same level
of enmeshedness with other texts. According to Manfred Pfister61 and Harold
Bloom,62 intertextuality only becomes a meaningful approach in the interpreta-
tion of texts if the global concept of the intertext is limited to intertextuality as
a specific characteristic of literariness and poeticity. What, then, was intertex-
tuality intended to accomplish and what can be inferred about the native un-
derstanding of intertextuality? To my understanding, a high degree of literary
intertextuality is to be considered not only a particular manifestation of erudi-
tion, but also a manifestation of meaning-production and intentionality, and
as such a resource for decoding the message of the text. Accordingly, intertex-
tuality deserves a more detailed analysis.
The account of the battle of Halule recorded in Sennacherib’s Chicago
Prism,63 for instance, is exceptional in the richness of its literary allusions. This
account is written in a highly poetic language and arguably “constitutes one
of the finest pieces of Assyrian royal literature.”64 The text’s first editor, Daniel
D. Luckenbill,65 noted its stylistic affinities with the Babylonian creation epic
Enūma Eliš as early as 1924. More recently, Elnathan Weissert has suggested
that through the literary allusions integrated into the account of the battle of
Halule, “Sennacherib’s scribe consciously referred to [Enūma Eliš] in order to
enhance his anti-Babylonian propaganda.”66 Weissert also argues that when
the account of the battle of Halule was written, namely in 691 BCE, “Sennach-
erib’s plan to besiege and destroy Babylon, loot Esagila and take Marduk into
captivity must have already been conceived.”67 Hayim Tadmor follows Weis-
sert’s understanding of the text.68

58 Barthes 1975, 78.

59 Barthes 1975, 148.
60 Riffaterre 1981, 101.
61 Pfister 1985, 13.
62 Bloom 1976, 2‒3.
63 Grayson and Novotny, RINAP 3/1, no. 22 and its duplicate known as the Jerusalem prism
no. 23.
64 Weissert 1997, 191.
65 Luckenbill 1924.
66 Weissert 1997, 192.
67 Weissert 1997, 202.
68 Tadmor 1997, 326.
308 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

Although it is tempting to imagine such a scenario, the Babylonian Chroni-

cle records an altogether different account of the battle of Halule in which the
Assyrian army is forced to retreat.69 It is difficult to reconcile this evidence
with the notion that Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule served to
justify a future sack of Babylon. Moreover, Sennacherib’s account of the battle
is replete with literary allusions to and intertextual links with texts other than
Enūma Eliš, including the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, the Middle Assyrian poems LKA
62 and 63, the Erra Epic, and the highly literary account of Sargon II’s Eighth
Campaign. Erudite literary intertextuality of this kind is extremely rare in Assyr-
ian royal inscriptions and points to the author’s extensive command of literary
tradition and to his singular capacity for combining elements drawn from
myth, historical epic, and royal inscription in order to present a particular in-
terpretation of historical events in conformity with cultural expectations and
tradition: in other words, to produce an argument. Broad interrelatedness be-
tween these texts is not merely a display of erudition, but a means of invoking
an extensive cultural tradition in order to frame and substantiate the concept
of good (Assyrian) and bad (enemy) kingship. This framework in turn acts to
sanction Sennacherib’s particularly brutal treatment of his Babylonian and
Elamite adversaries. With the exception of Sargon II’s Eighth Campaign and
Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule, the dual-focus pattern that type-
casts the Assyrian and enemy kings as good and bad antagonists respectively
is typical only of Assyrian epic literature and is especially prominent in the
Tukultī-Ninurta-Epic.70 Royal inscriptions, by contrast, generally present a pas-
sive and anonymous image of the enemy.
Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule describes his interaction with
the rebellious Babylonians following the abduction and murder of his son Aš-
šur-nādin-šumi, who had been the governor of Babylon. The account articu-
lates several aspects related to the ancient notion of the bad king and defines
actions that were considered taboo or divinely prohibited. It is the particular
combination and literary presentation of these aspects and actions that consti-
tutes a clear casus belli and justifies the Assyrian king’s military campaign.
The following points are addressed by the author of Sennacherib’s account of
the battle of Halule:
1. The illegitimate kingship of the Chaldean Mušēzib-Marduk, who rebelled
against Sennacherib, fled into the marshes, sought the support of the
Elamites, and was at some point restored to the Babylonian throne. Antag-
onism between the Babylonian and Assyrian kings is not, however, limited

69 Grayson 1975, Babylonian Chronicle 1 iii 16‒18.

70 See Chapter 7.5.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 309

to their personal disagreements. To account for the extensive resistance

with which Sennacherib was confronted in Babylon, the narrative shifts
from the person of the Babylonian king to the people of Babylon them-
selves. The citizens of Babylon are said to collectively lock the city gates
against the Assyrian king and are compared to the host of horrible crea-
tures (gallê lemnūti, Chic. Pr. v 18) created by Tiāmat in her battle against
Marduk. This allusion, evoking the notion of disorder and confusion de-
scribed at length in Enūma Eliš, functions as a synecdoche for the entire
pretext and determines the meaning of the new text.71 Further, the illegiti-
macy of the Chaldean king is expressed in a way that alludes directly to
Tiāmat’s appointment of the unworthy Qingu as leader of her terrifying
army of monsters, thus creating an alternative line of kingship to that
which produced Marduk (En. el. iv 82). This intense dramatization of the
antagonism between the Assyrian king and the Babylonians not only
serves to demonize the latter, but also provides the explanatory pattern for
the Assyrian king’s subsequent actions, establishing a clear chaîne opéra-
toire that is illustrated by the following passage from Enūma Eliš:
En. el. IV 115‒18
As for the eleven creatures, the ones adorned with an aura of terror,
And the horde of the gallû-demons, which all went at her side supporting her,
He put on lead ropes, he bound their arms.
He trampled them under, together with their belligerence.
2. The poor moral character of the Babylonians as a community is reflected
by their misappropriation of the treasure of Marduk’s temple Esagila and
their use of divine property to bribe the king of Elam to assist them (Chic.
Pr. v 31‒37a). Since in the Mesopotamian weltanschauung morality is com-
munal rather than individual and because the king was responsible for the
maintenance of civic order in his capacity as mediator between the divine
and human realms,72 these acts highlight both the immorality of the Baby-
lonian community and the failure – and consequent illegitimacy – of the
Babylonian king.
3. The account of the battle of Halule includes a description of both the initial
planning stage and of the actual military encounter itself. It is in this pas-
sage that most of the intertextual relationships with other mythical and
historical-epic texts can be observed. The furious attack of the Babylonian
and Elamite enemy hordes is described in naturalistic metaphors as an
attack of locusts (see the reference to Sargon II’s Eight Campaign below)

71 Pfister 1985, 28‒29.

72 Pongratz-Leisten 2013a.
310 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

and the cloud of a terrible storm. The author builds tension by relating
that the enemy forces cut Sennacherib off from all water sources and
sharpened their weapons in anticipation of slaughter. The introduction of
the latter motif – already used in Middle Assyrian heroic poems and royal
inscriptions (see below) – prompts Sennacherib to plan his counter-attack.
Rather than describing his attack as his own initiative, however, Senncher-
ib is said to turn to the gods in prayer, who then come to his aid. The icon
of the attacking king follows, rampaging like a wild lion, clothed in armor
and wearing a helmet, holding the weapon of Aššur in his hand, and driv-
ing his war chariot through the blood and gore of his fallen enemies. The
numerous intertextual references that characterize this passage are laid
out below.

Intertextuality in Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule transcends the

combat myth, as the tropological discourse that generates the gist of the narra-
tive is also apparent in Middle Assyrian heroic poems and royal inscriptions.
Although myth does operate as the text’s referential system of thought and
pattern of explanation, its intertextual ties to multiple other texts is evident on
various levels in an even more concrete way and can be identified on the basis
of the four criteria below:
1. while some of these texts include Assyrianisms, they are all written in the
Standard Babylonian literary dialect;
2. an intertextual link can consist of direct quotation, allusion, and the choice
of the same rare word in combination with the use of vocabulary exclusive
to literary texts;
3. the use of the same metaphor or literary figure of speech to describe a
particular situation;
4. the use of the same phraseology.

On the basis of these four points, intertextuality excludes stock phrases and
idiomatic expressions common in the Akkadian language. Any other intertex-
tual reference, however, creates concise word-pictures that not only condense
and crystallize the meaning of certain passages but also place a “constraint
upon reading,” i.e. they compel a particular reading of the text.73 Finally, inter-
textuality can function to authorize texts, as is the case in the newly reformulat-
ed text of Sennacherib.74 Intertextuality as an interpretation of historical events
thus represents a coherent strategy that links the new text with previous texts

73 Riffaterre 1980, 628.

74 On quotation and allusion see Mary Orr 2003, 130‒167.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 311

that have already defined certain cultural norms and expectations. In the case
of Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule, these norms and expectations
concern the office of kingship and the role of the warrior king. Enūma Eliš is
the key text informing Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule, as Sen-
nacherib’s effort to reestablish terrestrial order is portrayed as analogous to
Marduk’s re-establishment of cosmic order in Enūma Eliš – while Sennacherib’s
enemies are likened to those of Marduk, namely Tiāmat and her horde of mon-
sters led by Qingu. As stated above, intertextual references to other epics and
myths are numerous in Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule (especial-
ly with regard to the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic, LKA 62, LKA 63, and the Erra Epic).
These references are compiled below, but I cannot claim to have covered them
all given that the full scope of such learned intertextuality certainly eludes the
modern reader.
1. The description of the rebellious inhabitants of Babylon as “wicked de-
mons” (gallê lemnūti), which identifies them with the host aiding Tiāmat
in Enūma Eliš
a. Chic. Pr. v 18‒19: māri Bābili gallê lemnūti abullī āli uddilū “… and the
citizens of Babylon, wicked gallû-demons, had locked the city gates.”
b. En. el. IV 116‒117: milla gallê ālikū kalû imniša ittadi ṣerrēti idīšunu
ukassi “He put nose-ropes on the host of gallû-demons, all of which
will walk to her right; he tied their arms.”
c. Gallû demons appear three times in the Erra Epic, namely when the
Sebetti call Erra to arms: gallû lišmûma ina ramā[nišunu lilli]kū “the
gallû-demons may hear it and turn away (Erra I 67);” when Marduk
describes the disintegration of heaven and earth that will ensue if he
vacates the throne (Erra I 175); and when Erra promises Marduk that
he will ensure the gallû demons remain in the netherworld (Erra I 185).
2. When Sennacherib’s enemies engage in battle, they are characterized as
ones whose bodies are seized by alû-demons. As a consequence the
sheikhs of Chaldea trample (udaʾʾišū) the bodies of their own soldiers in-
stead of those of the enemy as they flee for their lives. To intensify the
image of utter disarray they are said to lose control over their bodily func-
tions.
a. Chic. Pr. vi 24‒35: šū mdUmman-menanu šar Elamti adi šar Bābili lúnas-
īkkāni ša Kaldi ālikūt idīšu hurbāšu tāhāziya kīma alê zumuršun ishup
zarātešun umaššerūma ana šuzūb napšātišunu pagrī ummānātišunu
udaʾʾišū ētiqū kī ša atmi summati kuššudi itarrakū libbūšun šinātēšun
uṣarrapū qereb narkabātišunu umaššerūni zûšun ana radādišunu nark-
abāt sīsîya umaʾʾer arkīšun munnaribšunu ana napšāte ūṣû ašar ikašša-
dū urasabū ina kakki. “(As for) him, Umman-menanu (Humban-mena-
312 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

nu), the king of the land Elam, along with the king of Babylon (and)
the sheikhs of Chaldea who marched at his side, terror of doing battle
with me overwhelmed them like alû-demons. They abandoned their
tents and, in order to save their lives, they trampled the corpses of
their troops as they pushed on. Their hearts throbbed like the pursued
young of pigeons, they passed their urine hotly, (and) released their
excrement inside their chariots. I ordered my chariots (and) horses to
pursue them. Wherever they caught (them), they killed with the sword
the runaways amongst them, who had fled for (their) lives.”
b. In a fragmentary passage of the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic the utterance of
the Assyrian king paralyzes Kaštiliaš’s body like the presence of an
alû-demon: TKN “iii” [= A obv.] 24: […] šarri danni kīma alê zumuršu
iksi.
3. In Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule in the Chicago Prism the
adverbial phrase ana lā simātišu is employed for the first time in Assyrian
royal inscriptions and thus serves as an excellent reference-marker.75 The
phrase appears in the context of illegitimate or unworthy enthronement
and follows the description of the Babylonian king as an unworthy weak-
ling, as the Babylonians are said “to have seated him on the throne, inap-
propriate for him (Chic. Pr. v 28‒30).” This alludes to Marduk’s accusation
that Tiāmat inappropriately appointed Qingu as ruler over the gods and
aligns the Babylonian king Mušēzib-Marduk/Šūzubu with Qingu as a lead-
er of the forces of chaos.
a. Chic. Pr. v 28‒30: Bābilāya ana lā simātišu ina kussî ušēšibūšu bēlūt
māt Šumeri u māt Akkadî ušadgilū pānišu “The Babylonians placed him
on the throne, inappropriate for him, and entrusted him with the ruler-
ship over Sumer and Babylon.”
b. En. el. IV 82: ana lā simātišu taškuniš ana paraṣ enūti “ Inappropriate
for him, you have installed him in the office of lordship.”
4. Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule describes how several armies
banded their forces together and advanced against the Assyrian king. This
passage not only has literary allusions to Enūma Eliš (puhuršunu innendū
“they were advancing towards me as a group”), but also to Sargon II’s
Eighth Campaign against Urartu, in which the enemy is said to advance
like a swarm of locusts.
a. Chic. Pr. v 55‒57: ana ahameš iqrubūma puhuršunu innendū kīma tibūt
aribī ša pān šatti mithāriš ana epēš tuqmāte tebūni ṣērūa “Like a spring

75 Weissert 1997, 193.

 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 313

invasion of a swarm of locusts they were advancing towards me as a

group to do battle.”
b. En. el. I 21: innendūma athū ilāni “the divine brethren banded together,
(confusing Tiāmat as they moved about in their stir).”
c. TCL 3 187: kīma tibūt aribī “like a swarm of locusts”
5. The use of the verb šêlu “to sharpen” in the sense of sharpening weap-
ons in preparation for battle is attested in the Middle Assyrian period in
LKA 62:6 (here the verb sahānu is used), LKA 63, and in the inscriptions
of Tiglath-Pileser I.
a. Tigl. I RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 i 36‒37: šatammu ṣīru ša dAššur kakkīšu ušaʾʾilu
“exalted temple administrator, whose weapons the god Aššur has
sharpened.”
b. LKA 63:6′‒7′: i[kpudū] ina libbīšun tuqunta mārū // t[āhāza] ik[ṣ]urū išē-
lū kakkīšun “The sons of the [mountains(?)] devised warfare in their
hearts. They prepared for battle, they sharpened their weapons.”76
c. Chic. Pr. v 62: ušaʾʾalū kakkēšun “(and keeping me from the water
source), they sharpened their weapons.”
d. En. el. IV 92: u ilānu ša tahāzi ušaʾʾalu šunu kakkēšun “while the gods
of battle were sharpening their weapons.”
6. The rare adverbial expression urruhiš, “quickly” is not attested in royal
inscriptions before the reign of Sennacherib and provides a further inter-
textual link with Enūma Eliš. It is, however, also attested in the Middle
Assyrian Tukultī-Ninurta Epic:
a. TKN Epic iii 47: umma urruhiš luddi […] “Quickly now, let me know ….”
b. Chic. Pr. v 66‒67: suppêʾa urruhiš išmû illikū rēṣūtī “they immediately
heeded my prayers (and) came to my aid.”
c. En. el. II 113: kišād Tiāmat urruhiš takabbas attā, “You will soon tram-
ple on Tiāmat’s neck.” As Elnathan Weissert observes, “the common
adverb links the alarmed state of Sennacherib and his divine support-
ers with the impatience of Anšar to send Marduk into battle.”77
7. A typical image used to describe the overwhelming force of the attacking
king is that of the rampaging lion. Thus in the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic the
warriors of Aššur face the Kassite king, and though they are not clad in
armor they nevertheless spring forth like lions:
a. TKN “iii” 39 = iv [=A rev.] 39: sar[i]jamāti ul ittahlipū labbiš ilabbubū
b. Sennacherib describes himself as a raging lion before he puts on his
armor:

76 Hurowitz and Westenholz 1990, 3.

77 Weissert 1997, 194.
314 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

Fig. 52: Standard of Ur with Soldiers Flattening the Enemy

(Photo: British Museum ME 121301; Courtesy British Museum).

Chic. Pr. v 67b‒69a: labbiš annadirma attalbiša // siriam huliam simat ṣēlti āpira
rāšūa “I raged up like a lion, then put on armor (and) placed a helmet suitable
for combat on my head.”78
c. The same leonine imagery occurs in the Erra Epic in Erra’s speech ad-
dressing the third among the Sebetti:
Erra I 34: it[ami] ana šalši zīm labbi lū šaknāta āmirka lih!harmiṭ “He co[mmand-
ed] the third: Make yourself the appearance of a lion, let him who sees you be
paralyzed with fear.”
8. The image of the king driving his chariot over the dead bodies of the enemy
and flattening (sapānu) their corpses is yet another key motif demonstrat-
ing invincible royal vigor and prowess. This image is already attested in
the iconography of the Standard of Ur (fig. 52) and is supplemented in
Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule by the image of the king
grasping the bow of Aššur and the arrow ready to cut short the lives of the
rebellious (see fig. 53). After Marduk creates the destructive winds and the
Deluge as his weapons in Enūma Eliš, he mounts his terrible chariot with
its four-steed team – the steeds are called the “Slaugtherer,” the “Merci-
less,” the “Overwhelmer,”, and the “Soaring” – and the chariot itself in-
spires tremendous terror and fear:
a. En. El. IV 50‒54
He mounted the irresistible and terrible storm-chariot,
He hitched to it the four-steed team, he tied them at his side:
“Slaughterer,” “Merciless,” “Overwhelmer,” “Soaring.”

78 Note the Hurrian origin of the terms for armor and helmet.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 315

Fig. 53: Assurbanipal on Chariot during Great Lion Hunt

(Strommenger and Hirmer 1964: Fig. 248).

Their lips are curled back, their teeth bear venom,

They know not fatigue, they are trained to trample down (lamdū sapāna).
b. The central function attributed to the warrior god’s chariot is further
evident in the fragment of a bilingual hymn probably addressed to the
chariot of Marduk and possibly dating originally to the reign of Nebu-
chadnezzar I. This fragment describes the parts of the chariot in line
with the sequence provided in Angimdimma rather than with the se-
quence of Ur₅.ra = hubullu (MSL VI 5 ff.):79
Angimdimma 52‒77
52‒54 On his shining chariot, which inspires terrible awe, he hung his captured
wild bulls on the axle and hung his captured cows on the cross-piece of the yoke.
55‒64 He hung the Six-headed wild ram on the dust-guard. He hung the Warrior
dragon on the seat. He hung the Magilum boat on the … He hung the Bison on
the beam. He hung the Mermaid on the foot-board. He hung the Gypsum on the
forward part of the yoke. He hung the Strong copper on the inside pole pin (?).
He hung the Anzû bird on the front guard. He hung the Seven-headed serpent on
the shining cross-beam. Lord Ninurta stepped into his Battle-worthy Chariot. ….

79 Lambert 1973.
316 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

76‒77 When, at Enlil’s command he was making his way toward Ekur, the warrior
of the gods was leveling the land (sapānu in bilingual edition).
c. Chic. Pr. v 69b‒73: ina narkabti tahazīya ṣirti sāpinat za’īri ina uggat
libbīya artakab hantiš qaštu dannatu ša Aššur ušatlima ina qātīya aṣbat
šiltāhu pāri’ napšāti atmuh rittūʾa “In my anger, I rode quickly in my
exalted battle chariot, which lays enemies low. I took in my hand the
mighty bow that the god Aššur had granted to me (and) I grasped in
my hand an arrow that cuts off life.”
d. In Enūma Eliš the image of Marduk grasping a special weapon appears
separately from the image of him riding his chariot. The former image
precedes the latter and is linked to the gods’ command that Marduk
kill Tiāmat:
En. el. IV 30‒31: iddinūšu kak lā mahra dāʾipu zayyāri / alikma ša Tiāmat napšatuš
puru’ma “They gave him an unrivalled weapon which overwhelms the enemy,
(saying): ‘Go and pierce Tiāmat’s throat.’
The rare expression napišta parāʾu is common to both Sennacherib’s
account of the battle of Halule and Enūma Eliš, and both texts empha-
size the divine endowment of the weapon.80 The image of piercing the
throat recurs in Chic. Pr. vi 3.
9. The lengthy description of Marduk preparing his chariot for battle in Enū-
ma Eliš (En. El. IV 50 ff.) is followed by Marduk’s creation of the four horri-
ble winds, which can be compared with the image of the king blowing like
the onset of a severe storm that occurs in Sennacherib’s account of the
battle of Halule:
a. Chic. Pr. v 77: kīma tīb mēhê šamri ana nakri azīq “I blew like the onset
of a severe storm against the enemy.”
b. The Tukultī-Ninurta Epic uses similar imagery:
TKN iv (= A rev.) 40‒43
The irresistible Weapon of Aššur meets (in battle)
those attacking [his] for[ce].
And Tukultī-Ninurta, the raging, pitiless storm (ūmu ekdu la pādû),
made [their blood] flow.
The warriors of Aššur (struck) the army of the king of the Kassites like a serpent,
A furious attack, an indomitable onslaught (ašgugu dannu tīb la mahār) [came]
upon them.
c. Erra I 36: ana hanši iqtabi kīma šāri zīqma kippātu hīṭa “To the fifth
(weapon) he said: ‘Sweep on like the wind and penetrate into the ends
of the world.”

80 Weissert 1997, 194 f. Weissert further refers to the fact that this image already occurs once
in the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III (Annals 17:11′) as restored by H. Tadmor, and equally
mentions the ceremonial temple name Marduk pāriʾ napišti ayyābī “Marduk-Is-the Piercer-of-
Enemies” with reference to George 1993, 57.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 317

Erra I 115: kī šāri azâqu kī dAdad ur[t]aṣan “Like the wind I blow, like Adad I
thunder.”
Erra i 173‒174: Cagni: [šāru] lemnu izîqamm[a] ša nišī šiknat napišti niṭil[šin uṭṭâ]
“An evil wind will blow hither and [blur] the eyesight of humankind.”
10. The verbal form lištahhiṭamma appears in comparable contexts in Enūma
Eliš and Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule:
a. Chic. Pr. v 78‒79: ina kakkē Aššur bēlīya u tīb tahāzīya // zumuršunu
lištahhiṭamma lā inēʾʾû i[rassun] “With the weapons of the god Aššur,
my lord, and my fierce battle array, I turned them back and made them
retreat.”
b. En. El. I 140: zumuršunu lištahhiṭamma lā inēʾʾû i[rassun] “let their (the
monsters’) bodies keep attacking and not turn away.”
11. In Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule the uṣṣu-arrow is used to
pierce the corpses of the enemy; the same arrow is used to attack the walls
of Babylon in the Erra Epic, where the walls stand in as a synecdoche for
Babylon’s citizens and their piercing by the arrow leads them to cry out in
pain:
a. Chic. Pr. v 80‒81: ummānāt nakiri ina uṣṣi mulmulli ušaqqirma “I shot
the troops of the enemy with uṣṣu-arrows (and) mulmullu-arrows, and
(pierced all their corpses like …)”
b. Erra IV 16: ša Imgur-Enlil uṣṣa elīšu tummidma uʾa libbi iqtabi “As to
the (city wall) Imgur-Enlil, you have struck it with (your) arrow so that
it says ‘Woe my heart.’”
See also Erra i 90: ša uṣṣīni zaqti kepâta liša[n]šu “the tip (lit. tongue)
of our sharp arrow is blunted.”
c. The mulmullu-arrow used by Sennacherib also features as one of Mar-
duk’s weapons in Enūma Eliš:
En. El. IV 34‒41:
On the path to success and authority did they (the gods) set him marching.
He made the bow, appointed his weapon,
He mounted the arrow (mulmullu), set it on the string.
He took up the mace, held it in his right hand,
Bow and quiver he slung on his arm.
Thunderbolts he set before his face
With raging fire he covered his body.
Then he made a net to enclose Tiāmat within.
d. The use of Marduk’s mulmullu-arrow against Tiāmat parallels its
“piercing” used by Sennacherib:
En. El. IV 100: issuk mulmulla ihtepi karassa “He shot off the mulmullu-arrow and
split her belly.”
e. See further Chic. Pr. v 81‒82: gimri pagrīšunu upalliša tamziziš “all their
bodies I pierced like …” and En. El. v 58 where the verb palāšu is used
to describe Marduk’s drilling of waterholes in Tiāmat’s corpse to carry
318 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

off the catchwater: namba’ī uptalliša ana babālim kuppu “He drilled
through her waterholes to carry off the catchwater.”
12. Comparing the enemy to sacrificial animals slaughtered in ritual contexts
endows the actions of the Assyrian king with a religious overtone and can
be identified in various texts:
a. Chic. Pr. v 82b-vi 1: “I quickly slaughtered and defeated Humban-unda-
ša, the herald of the king of the land Elam, a trusted man who leads
his troops, his main support, together with his magnates, who wear
gold (decorated) belt-daggers and have reddish gold sling straps fas-
tened to their forearms, like fattened bulls (kīma šūri marūti) restrained
with fetters. I slit their throats like sheep (kišādātišunu unakkis asliš)
(and thus) cut off their precious life like thread.”
b. In the Tukultī-Ninurta Epic the allies of the Babylonian king are said to
be slaughtered like cattle:
TKN iv (= A rev. 32‒45) “the warriors of Aššur [fell] upon the king of the Kassites
like a serpent … his allies were slaughtered like cattle.”
c. Similarly, Enūma Eliš compares the enemy to a bull:
En. El. IV 123‒129
Having captured and vanquished his enemies
Having subjugated the mighty enemy like a wild bull (šūrišam),81
Having fully achieved Anšar’s victory over his enemies,
Valiant Marduk having attained what Nudimmud desired,
He made firm his hold over the captured gods,
Then turned back to Tiāmat whom he had captured.82
13. In the Tukultī-Ninurta-Epic the Babylonian king threatens to soak the pas-
tures with the blood of the Assyrians, which will flood over their camp –
a threat made good by the Assyrians against the Babylonians. The meta-
phor of torrents of blood is also used by Sennacherib and appears in the
Erra Epic:
a. TKN iv (= A rev.) 32′ f.: m[ā] annû ūmu šá dām nišē(UNmeš)-ka umakkaru
namê qerbēti // [u] elu (UGU) karāšika kī[ma d]Adde ušettaqu abūb
n[aš]panti “This is the day, your people’s blood will soak the pastures
and meadows, // And like the leveling of the flood pass over your
camp.”
b. Chic. Pr. vi 3‒5: kīma mīli gapši ša šamûtu simāni ummunîšunu ušarda
ṣēr erṣeti “I made their blood flow over the broad earth like a huge
flood caused by a seasonal rainstorm.”

81 The terminative ending –iš is followed by the accusative case –am, used adverbially, see
Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, § 28.2 and § 28.4). See also the translation of Talon
2005, 94.
82 Foster 2005, 461.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 319

c. Erra IV 34‒35: damēšunu kīma mê rāṭi tušaṣbita ribit āli // umunnâšunu

taptêma tušabbil nāra “You made their blood flow along the square of
the city like water in a channel // you leased their blood and let the
river carry it off.”
Like Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule, the Erra Epic uses
the highly poetic term umunnû for “blood.”

Intertextual references to the Erra Epic can be questioned on the ground that
unlike Sennacherib or Marduk, Erra rages indiscriminately, killing both good
and bad. Only when all enemies are killed is Erra placated, decreeing the re-
building of Akkad so that the land can flourish anew. This notion of complete
destruction followed by renewal, however, follows the chaîne opératoire laid
out in Enūma Eliš, in which Marduk kills Tiāmat in order to create the cosmos
out of her corpse. It is thus not the Erra Epic but Sennacherib who deviates
from established mythological patterns of total destruction and rebuilding. Af-
ter Sennacherib destroyed Babylon by means of ritual flooding, he did not in-
tend for the city to be rebuilt.83 Although Sennacherib’s attack on Babylon
mirrors that of Erra during Marduk’s absence (Erra I 180‒191) and this parallel
is used to make sense of Sennacherib’s brutal devastation and destruction of
the city, Sennacherib deviates from traditional cultural norms by failing to en-
vision the rebuilding of Babylon. As the foundation inscription of Sennacher-
ib’s newly built akītu-house at Aššur relates,84 Sennacherib transported some
of Babylon’s dust to Aššur in order to bury it at the foundation of that temple.
This symbolic act served to demonstrate that renewal and creation were the
exclusive prerogative of Aššur, while Babylon was consigned to complete anni-
hilation.
Already in the 1980s Johannes Renger advocated a literary approach to
royal inscriptions. At the time he was scrutinizing the royal inscriptions of Sar-
gon II, stating that their highly literary style – expressed in the use of rare
words otherwise attested in synonym lists (primarily Malku = Šarru),85 in the
archaizing adoption of titles like (w)aklu, šakkanakku, and šāpiru for the
king,86 in vowel and consonant alliteration, and in the intense use of compari-
son and metaphor along with syntactical features like paratactic structure and
chiasm – was otherwise typical of lyric and epic literature. Renger further not-

83 On the notion of flooding a city as a symbol for complete destruction see Machinist 1997,
who discusses it in relation to the fall of Assyria.
84 OIP 2, 135‒139 foundation stela I 2.
85 Renger 1986, 121.
86 Renger 1986, 122.
320 Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

ed the strong intertextual relations between royal inscriptions and texts like
Enūma Eliš, the Erra Epic, and the Etana Epic.87 According to Renger, the high-
ly erudite character and literary style of Sargon II’s inscriptions represents an
innovation in the corpus of Assyrian royal inscriptions and enabled the devel-
opment of new models for the articulation of military accounts.88 This literariz-
ing process indeed pervades the royal inscriptions of the Sargonid period and
is indicative of the patterns of thought prevailing in the scholarly circles con-
cerned with royal ideological discourse. Scholars in these circles appear to
have resorted to literarization and intertextuality as a deliberate cultural strate-
gy that redefined the institution of kingship in mythic terms at a time when
the Assyrian empire was approaching the height of its power and was simulta-
neously extraordinarily powerful and extremely fragile. The mythic redefini-
tion of royal deeds aimed to make sense of reality and represented a cultural
strategy for sanctioning the king’s actions and guiding the reception of the
texts by their audience.
As shown above, the author of Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Ha-
lule clearly intended to do more than compose a simple military account. As-
syrian royal inscriptions from the Middle Assyrian period onward make use of
the tropological discourse of the combat myth, which operates as the master
narrative and determines the emplotment of the events described in these in-
scriptions. The author of Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule does
not draw on various myths and epic texts as hypotexts (A) merely in order to
reveal a commonality in the cultural experience of warfare: he draws upon
specific texts because they were already part of a literary tradition offering a
repertoire of familiar images and metaphors that can explain the king’s ac-
tions. Accordingly, the author is able to frame his text as the only possible
interpretation of reality and is capable of engraving his own hypertext (B) in
the cultural memory.89 In the educated mind, literary allusions drawn from
underlying hypotexts evoke these narratives as a whole along with the “pheno-
text” of the combat myth. These allusions thus invoke particular chains of ar-
gumentation whose specific compositional structure as constituents of a line
of thought on warfare and royal action serves to frame events in line with the
author’s purposes. Myth, then, is not a vague aura of the archaic: it functions

87 Renger 1986, 122.

88 Renger 1986, 122.
89 For the relationship between a text A (hypotext) underlying a newly created hypertext (B)
see Gérard Genette’s theory of transtextuality, Genette 1997, 5. I apply Genette’s concept of
hypertextuality in a broader sense using the terms hypotext and hypertext beyond parody,
travesty, pastiche, caricature, and forgery, and transposition as intertexts with a pretext.
 The Intertextuality of Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule 321

as an analytical category operating on the basis of images rather than discur-

sive reasoning.90 From the perspective of cognitive linguistics myth supplied
the shared experience and cultural memory of the Assyrian community, which
contributed to the process of cultural construction and the production of mean-
ing.91 Beyond prescribing the only possible chaîne opératoire of royal action,
intertextuality between myth and Sennacherib’s account of the battle of Halule
can be considered as a cultural strategy deliberately chosen by the scholar
in order to present the only acceptable authoritative statement and to justify
Sennacherib’s singularly brutal treatment of the Babylonians and Elamites.92
The intertextuality that characterizes Sennacherib’s account of the battle
of Halule and Sargon’s Eighth Campaign is also evident in Esarhaddon’s Apolo-
gy and in the royal inscriptions of Ashurbanipal. Several formulas in Neo-As-
syrian royal inscriptions can be traced back to the heroic poems of the Middle
Assyrian period. Such intertextuality reveals that form and narrative tech-
niques should not be regarded as neutral until they are filled with content.
Rather, “narrative modes were highly semanticized and engaged in the process
of cultural construction”93 and in the production of meaning.

90 Kiening 2004, 35.

91 Lakoff and Johnson 1980.
92 On the embeddedness of a newly created text in a universe of already existing texts that
provide authoritative meaning see Stierle 1984.
93 Nünning 2009, 62.
9 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship:
Rethinking Ancient Historiography
9.1 Introduction
So far, this study has focused on the divine warrior Ningirsu/Ninurta as a
model for kingship and on the Ninurta mythology as a paradigm for the narra-
tive of the king’s deeds in both literary and historiographic texts. There are,
however, two moments in Mesopotamian history when it is possible to observe
a cultural strategy that promotes individual rulers as paradigmatic models for
kingship, though the actual processes by which this strategy was pursued dif-
fer greatly in each case. The first such moment is in the Old Babylonian period,
when scribes self-consciously conceived of the kings Sargon and Narām-Sîn of
Akkad as the prototypes for future monarchs and articulated this vision in
omen literature and in the development of a rich literary corpus centered on
these kings. The second such moment – initiated by the relevant monarchs
themselves rather than by later scribes – dates to the Sargonid period, when
the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal decided to write their royal
deeds into the historical record by incorporating them into the well-known and
distinct text categories of oracles and divination compendia, a cultural strategy
fully in keeping with that of the Old Babylonian scribes. Although the Sargonic
and the Sargonid kings are separated by sixteen centuries, the cultural innova-
tions that led to their establishment as paradigmatic figures were not entirely
independent of each other. Indeed, the two Neo-Assyrian rulers appear to have
refashioned the Old Babylonian precedent for their own purposes. In Ashur-
banipal’s case, we know that he was familiar with the omen tradition that re-
ferred to the kings of Akkad and Ur III as prototypes for royal action, as it is
in his library that a tablet recording only historical omens was found.1 Both
Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal drew on prophecy and extispicy as techniques
for communication with the gods, but the distinct nature of these techniques –
one inductive, the other deductive – resulted in significant differences in how
these kings were inscribed in the historical record as paradigms for rulership.
The historiographic innovations of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal cannot
be isolated from the prolific textual production that characterizes the entirety
of the Sargonid period. In a time when deviation from the law of primogeni-
ture, the violation of international agreements, and internal disharmony
threatened to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of individual Sargonid

1 Starr 1986.
 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 323

kings, the importance of divine sanction and the pretension of complying with
the dictates of time-honored tradition became ever more pronounced. It is pre-
cisely during this period that textual production centered on the figure of the
king diversified and become more sophisticated in its argumentation – Hayim
Tadmor goes so far as to speak of regicentric literature.2 Striking in this devel-
opment is the apparent preference for dialogue – real or fictive – as the literary
framework through which to illustrate and emphasize repeatedly the homo-
geneity and congruence in action between the king and the gods. The move
toward a dialogical literary setting is evident in the Royal Report of the King to
the God Aššur and the Letter of Aššur to the King,3 in the secondary textualiza-
tion of prophecy in the collective oracle tablets, and in the Fictive Dialogue
between Ashurbanipal and Nabû.4 Typical of these new compositions is their
retrospective perspective, in which divine sanction for the deeds of the king is
continually sought.
Since it is this retrospective perspective that shaped the overall character
of the Royal Report to the God Aššur and the Letter of the God Aššur, these text
categories will be discussed before I turn to the case studies of Esarhaddon
and Ashurbanipal. These case studies will in turn examine how history was
rewritten through the use of established text categories like prophecy and
omen compendia.

9.2 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and

Divine Letters
The Royal Report to the god Aššur and the Letter of the God Aššur represent two
text categories that were written at the end of a royal campaign in order to
conclude the communicative process between the king and the gods that
served to secure the king’s victory in battle. Channels of communication in-
cluded astrological omens, dream oracles, prophecy, and extispicy, which were
consulted both prior to and during wartime, first to confirm a propitious mo-
ment in which to embark on campaign and subsequently to overcome any cri-
ses while on campaign.5 Although extispicy was the standard means for verify-
ing homogeneity in human and divine intentionality, other techniques are in-

2 Tadmor 1986, 205.

3 Pongratz-Leisten 1999;
4 SAA 3 no. 3.
5 See the discussion by Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 277‒285.
324 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

voked as a group at seemingly insurmountable moments of military challenge,

for instance by Ashurbanipal immediately prior the battle of Tell Tuba:

Upon the command of Aššur and Marduk, the Great Gods, my lords, who encouraged me
with good omens, dreams, oracular utterances, and prophetic messages (ina ittāti damqāti
šutti egerrê šipir mahhê), I defeated him in Tell Tuba.6

These techniques can also be invoked at the moment of victory itself, as is the
case when Esarhaddon refers to divine favor at the time of his ascension to the
throne:

(i 87‒ii 11) In Addaru (XII), a favorable month, on the eighth day, the eššeššu-festival of
the god Nabû, I joyfully entered Nineveh, my capital city, and I sat happily on the throne
of my father. The south wind, the breeze of the god Ea, the wind whose blowing is favor-
able for exercising kingship, blew upon me. (ii. 5) Favorable signs came in good time to
me in heaven and earth. They (the gods) continually and regularly encouraged me with
oracles through ecstatics, the message(s) of the gods and goddess(es). I sought out every
one of the guilty soldiers, who wrongly incited my brothers to exercise kingship over
Assyria, and imposed a grievous punishment on them: I exterminated their offspring.7

The composition of royal reports and divine letters, by contrast, does not ap-
pear to have been standard practice for military campaigns. Such texts were
only written when there was a severe violation of a tacit or an explicit interna-
tional agreement or when the king was involved in fratricide. In other words,
royal reports and divine letters were only composed when the king’s actions
required divine legitimization in the form of a divine command that sanctioned
the royal deed. A. Leo Oppenheim observes that in Sargon II’s letter to the god
Aššur concerning his pillaging of the temple of the Urartean national god Hal-
di, which was located in Muṣaṣir and served as the cultic center for the corona-
tion ceremonies of the Urartean kings, the Assyrian king “offers here an argu-
ment in his defense, an argument that anticipates a human reaction which
the reference to a divine pronouncement is meant to counter.”8 Although the
pillaging of temples regularly featured as one of the destructive measures in-
flicted upon enemies by the Assyrian kings, Sargon II’s seemingly unprovoked
pillaging of Muṣaṣir was a contentious and potentially sacrilegious act that
required divine sanction in the eyes of some of his contemporaries.
A brief overview of the form of royal reports and divine letters will contrib-
ute to a better understanding of their function. Although royal reports to the

6 BIWA, 225 Prism B § 35, v 93‒96; for prophetic messages in royal inscriptions see Nissinen
1998.
7 RINAP 4, no. 1 ii 1‒11.
8 Oppenheim 1960, 137.
 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 325

god are accounts of military campaigns, they differ from ordinary royal inscrip-
tions in that they can include an introductory section addressing the god di-
rectly – and in some cases other parties – and a postscript reporting on casual-
ties.9 Furthermore, royal reports can use poetic language, as is the case in
Sargon II’s report on his eighth campaign to Urartu, and they can include un-
usual reflections on the theme of royal responsibility, as is the case in Esarhad-
don’s report on his campaign to Šubria.10
Divine letters, by contrast, incorporate verbatim quotes from royal reports
and can even refer to them with the formula ša tašpuranni “according to what
you wrote to me.”11 Because of this formula, I suggest restricting the category
“divine letter” to those texts of the first millennium that identify the god as the
sender of the letter.12 Divine letters and royal reports have five typical features:
1. Both text categories reflect a written communication in line with the send-
er–recipient model.
2. In divine letters the god is sends the letter, whereas in royal reports it is
the king who is the sender.
3. Formally, both text categories resemble the letter style, while the kings
may address the god Aššur in a longer eulogy.13 Divine letters omit the
address to the king but the discursive mode of the dialogue is maintained
in the direct speech addressed to the king. Several divine letters use the
formula ša tašpuranni “according to what you wrote to me.”
4. Both text categories resemble royal inscriptions in terms of content. Royal
reports are written in the first person and make use of the past tense, as
do royal inscriptions.
5. Divine letters refer to the deeds of the king in the second person, while
divine interference is described in the first person; divine letters also make
use of the past tense.

Unlike the oracles of Ištar, which aim to maintain the illusion of direct verbal
communication between goddess and king even in their written form, the dis-
cursive form of Aššur’s divine letters aligns with that of commemorative narra-
tives. The commemorative style of divine letters and their similarity in content

9 See the royal reports of Shalmaneser IV (RIMA 3, A.0.105.3) and that of Sargon II (TCL 3).
10 Bauer 1931; Leichty 1991; Lanfranchi 2003.
11 See the texts nos. 41‒43 in Livingstone, SAA 3 and Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 220.
12 Unlike Borger 1957‒1971, I exclude the Sumerian and Akkadian language Old Babylonian
letter prayers.
13 This is the case in Ashurbanipal’s letter to Aššur reporting on his campaigns against the
Arabs, see Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 241‒245.
326 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

with commemorative inscriptions and royal reports qualifies them as historio-

graphic documents that relate to the deeds of the king in a retrospective per-
spective. Divine letters quote verbatim from royal reports and modify their
phraseology only by adding prepositional elements that refer to the king in
the second person, thereby creating a fictive dialogue. Beyond phraseological
modifications of this kind, the god in divine letters appropriates actions origi-
nally performed by the king. The following excerpt from Aššur’s letter to Ashur-
banipal illustrates this principle:

SAA 3 no. 44: 3‒10

3‒4 Because of the evil deeds [which Šamaš-šum-ukīn] committed against you, I pulled
out the foundations of his royal throne, over[threw] his reign and [comma]nded the dis-
persal 14 of the entire land of Akkad.
5‒6 To perfect the shrines of the great gods, to renew […] the offerings, to venerate my
divinity (and) a good reign of […] I decreed as your fate.
7‒10 As for Šamaš-šum-ukīn, who did not keep my treaty, but sinned against the charity
of Ashurbanipal, my beloved king, I confined him in harsh imprisonment and bound […].
I placed lead ropes on his magnates and [lead] them to [your] presence.

In the above passage, the underlying royal report retains its basic phraseologi-
cal structure but is subjected to two forms of editorial revision in order to effec-
tuate its transformation into a divine letter. First, the author intersperses the
erstwhile royal report with legitimizing formulae that present the deeds of the
king as consequent to the command of the god. Second, by framing the whole
text as a divine response to the king’s report, the author evokes a situation of
dialogue between god and king.
The fictive dialogue between king and god does not aim at the exchange
of information. Instead, the goal of this interaction is to consolidate the rela-
tionship between king and god and consequently to re-establish the harmoni-
ous balance between the divine and earthly realms, albeit with both a contem-
porary and a future audience in mind.15 In my view, Aššur’s sanctioning of the
king’s deeds was a necessary prerequisite without which the king was not al-
lowed to access the Aššur temple or permitted to perform his triumphal proces-
sion. The letter of Sargon II (722‒705 BCE) to the god Aššur, in which he reports
on his eighth campaign to Urartu, will serve to make my case. Its introductory
section and its postscript in particular shed light on the king’s accountability

14 Unlike Livingstone, SAA 3 no. 44:3‒4 I prefer to render sapāhu as dispersal rather than as
destruction.
15 Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 284.
 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 327

to the elites,16 as well as on the involvement of elites in the king’s communica-

tion with the gods. The form and content of both sections is already familiar
from Shalmaneser IV’s (783‒773 BCE) report to Aššur, but with one important
exception: Shalmaneser IV lists only the god Aššur and the gods dwelling in
the Aššur temple as recipients of his letter, while Sargon II (722‒705 BCE)
uniquely includes the city of Aššur and its citizens in his greeting formula:

1. To Aššur, father of the gods, great lord who dwells in Ehursaggalkurkurra, his
great abode, hail, all hail!
2. To the gods of destinies and the goddesses who dwell in Ehursaggalkurkurra, their
great abode, hail, all hail!
3. To the gods of destinies and the goddesses who dwell in the city of Aššur, their
great abode, hail, all hail!
4. To the city and its people, hail, all hail, to the palace located in it hail, all hail!
5. For Sargon, the pure priest, the servant who reveres your great divinity and his
army, all is well.17

The fact that Sargon II’s address includes the elites of Aššur – this is probably
what is meant by “its people” (nišēšu) – reflects the change that must have
resulted from Tiglath-pileser III’s (744‒727 BCE) reduction of Assyrian vassal
states to the status of provinces, a process that significantly extended the bor-
ders of the Assyrian empire. One of the consequences of this expansion was
the attendant growth of the upper echelons of Assyria’s bureaucracy, thus mak-
ing the entire system more vulnerable to internal instability. This political
change in turn informed Assyrian cultural discourse, as is illustrated by the
development of new text categories. In their function as shapers of the Assyri-
an weltanschauung and as managers of communication between the gods and
the king, scholars had to create a cultural discourse that reflected Assyrian
political achievements and harmonized them with the cosmic order so as to
foster the illusion of absolute royal control. It was precisely this demand for
concerted communication between the gods and the king and its public dis-
play, however, that made the scholars indispensable to the king and promoted
their monopolies in divinatory techniques, in shaping state rituals, and in
elaborating textual and iconographic programs that insulated the monarch
against any human judgment.
The introductory formula of royal reports is modeled after the phraseology
of Neo-Assyrian letters, a fact that impelled A. Leo Oppenheim to assume that

16 Tadmor 1986 and Lanfranchi 2003.

17 TCL 3 ll. 1‒5; for a new edition see Mayer 1983; a new translation has been supplied by
Foster 2005, 790‒813; for a discussion of the letter, see Oppenheim 1960; Zaccagnini 1981;
Levine 2003.
328 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

they “were written, not to be deposited in silence in the sanctuary, but to be

actually read to a public that was to react directly to their contents.”18 The
public that Oppenheim had in mind consisted of the priesthood, the city as a
corporate unit represented by the elders, and the city’s inhabitants in general.
The priesthood itself, however, consisted of cultic functionaries with circum-
scribed cultic and administrative duties; excepting the šangû of Aššur and the
šangûs of other gods, it is doubtful whether the priesthood constituted a strong
and discrete social group in Aššur.19 The role of the scholars was certainly
more incisive, as they functioned as guardians of tradition and controlled both
the king’s public display and his interaction with the divine realm. As has been
pointed out by Tadmor,20 it is not clear if the elders, who were presumably
equivalent to the heads of the wealthy merchant families in the Old Assyrian
period, still played a role in Middle Assyrian times; it is all the more questiona-
ble if such elders played an appreciable role in the Neo-Assyrian period. While
Oppenheim’s interpretation of Sargon II’s letter to the god is very suggestive,
it is unsupported by the evidence. In fact, there is no need for a public setting
for the reading of this letter, and indeed the Aramaic speaking environment of
the time likely meant that the letter, with its unusual lexicography, would not
even have been understood by the general public. In the stele bearing his laws,
Hammurabi – like Sargon II in his letter to the god – claims to address his
people. Hammurabi’s stele was set up in the courtyard of the temple, and con-
stitutes a useful point of comparison for the setting of Sargon II’s address to
his people. The temple courtyard was accessible only to the functionaries and
cultic specialists linked with it, which effectively limits the audience of objects
and texts deposited within it to the gods and posterity.
It is the colophon of Sargon II’s letter to the god that helps identify its
prospective audience and the agents behind the scene. Following its opening
epistolary formula, the body of Sargon II’s detailed report on his campaign
against Urartu has the narrative form typical of royal inscriptions, though it is
unusual in its “poetic language, plays on words, and elaborate figures of
speech.”21 At the very end of the report, Sargon II describes his decision to
send the army home while he himself – accompanied only by his elite troops –
deviates from the normal route to go via Muṣaṣir, home of the temple of the
chief god of the Urartian pantheon, Haldi, and the place where Urartian kings

18 Oppenheim 1960, 143.

19 For this professional group see Menzel 1981, 130‒208 with a list of šangûs known by name.
20 Tadmor 1986, 205.
21 Foster 2005, 790. See further Fales 1991b for a detailed analysis of the complex poetic
structure of the text.
 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 329

were crowned. Sargon II destroys the temple of the god Haldi, abducts its gods,
and plunders all of its belongings. This account concludes with a 5‒line colo-
phon, which is unusual for the epistolary text category but typical of those
texts that were collected in the libraries of the scholars and kings and thus
comprised the stream of tradition. The colophon does not, however, identify
the tablet as the king’s property, but as the property of the chief scribe of the
king, who is explicitly described as a scholar of Sargon II. After its composi-
tion, the tablet somehow found its way into the library of the chief exorcist of
the Aššur temple, who likely had a particular interest in the figure of Sargon II.
The Sargon Geography, a text that portrays Sargon II as the follower of the
paradigmatic great king Sargon of Akkad, was also part of this library. Interest-
ingly, both the Sargon Geography and Sargon II’s report on his eight campaign
involve the notion of an imaginary empire of nearly cosmological dimen-
sions.22 The colophon of Sargon II’s report reads as follows:

426 One charioteer, two horsemen, and three scouts (of those who) were killed.
427 I made Ṭāb-šār-Aššur, the chief-steward, send the men (who bring) first rate
messages (lúEME.SAGmeš) to Aššur, my lord.
428 Tablet of Nabû-šallim-šunu, chief scribe of the king, chief tablet scribe,23 scholar
of Sargon, king of Assyria,
429 First born son of Harmakki, royal scribe, a native of Aššur.
430 (The report) was delivered in the eponym year of Issar-dūri, governor of Arrapha.

I will refrain here from discussing the various renderings of line 427,24 which
are complicated by the fact that in some royal reports to the god Aššur the
term lisānu rēštu (lúeme.SAGmeš) is used without the determinative lú and can
be translated as “first rate message,” a translation that I think is most appropri-
ate to Sargon II’s text. Furthermore, scholarly opinion hinges upon the ques-
tion as to whether the verb ultēbila should be translated in the first or in the
third person singular: “I made send” or “he (Ṭāb-šār-Aššur) made send.” The
1st person possessive pronoun “my lord” leads me to assume Sargon II as the
subject of this sentence.
What is of particular interest is that this colophon indicates the involve-
ment of several parties in Sargon II’s report to the god. One figure is Nabû-
šallim-šunu, the king’s scholar and the apparent composer of the tablet, and
the other is the chief steward and treasurer Ṭāb-šār-Aššur who, according to

22 Pedersén 1985, part II, 44.

23 For giburu Foster 2005, 813 refers to Reiner 1967, 200.
24 Line 427 reads, lúEME.SAGmeš mDÙG.GA.IM-dA-šur lúAGRIG GAL-ú ina UGU dA-šur be-lí-ia
ul-te-bi-la; for the various translations see Levine 2003, 118 fn. 18.
330 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

information gleaned from the epistolary record, was responsible for inspec-
tions of all kinds and for work assignments to palaces and temples in various
cities, in addition to being involved in political affairs more broadly.25 Unfortu-
nately, very little is known of Sargon II’s scholar Nabû-šallim-šunu. He is men-
tioned in a text that reports on his partaking in offerings and purification cere-
monies performed in the Aššur temple prior to Sargon II’s triumphal proces-
sion.26 These activities in the Aššur temple took place on the 21st of the month
Kislimu or Ṭebetu. If we assume that the date for the king’s triumphal proces-
sion to the Aššur temple was set in the eleventh month Šabaṭu as mentioned
in the later ritual text for Ashurbanipal A 125,27 then the textual evidence sug-
gests that the chief scribe had to perform some preparatory rites in order to
allow the king to enter the city after his military campaign. Whether or not it
was Nabû-šallim-šunu who brought the report of the king before Aššur on this
particular occasion is a matter of speculation. In any event, the royal report
likely reached the Aššur temple at some point before Sargon II’s triumphal
entry into the city; divine letters written in response to royal reports survive
from the reigns of Šamšī-Adad V (823‒811 BCE)28 and Ashurbanipal (668‒631/
27? BCE).29 In conjunction with the postscripts of the divine letters, the avail-
able evidence suggests the following reconstruction of the various steps that
were required for the king to be allowed to enter the city of Aššur following a
military campaign:30
1. The king’s scribe wrote a report on the king’s campaign;
2. the king sent somebody to Aššur with the report;
3. at some point purification rites were performed at the Aššur temple in or-
der to allow for the triumphal entry of the king into Aššur; in Sargon II’s
case, these rites were performed by his chief scribe Nabû-šallim-šunu;
4. Aššur sanctified the report in the form of an oracle, as may be deduced
from the subscript miḫrat dibbī [Aššur] “copy of the words of [Aššur]” in
Aššur’s letter to Ashurbanipal SAA 3 44;

25 See his correspondence with the king published by Parpola, SAA 1 nos. 41‒74.
26 ND 1120, Wiseman 1952; transcription and translation in van Driel 1969, 200‒204; collated
by Postgate in CTN 2 no. 229.
27 The text is dated to the time of Ashurbanipal and arrangements may have been altogether
different under his reign, see Menzel 1981, vol. 2, no. 24 i 5. For the interrelationship of these
events see already Lanfranchi 1990, 230 f. and fn. 99
28 SAA 3 no. 41.
29 SAA 3 nos. 44 and 45; see also the fragments SAA 3 nos. 42 and 43 to unidentified kings.
30 The idea of a fictive dialogue between king and god enacted first in the royal report that
followed a military campaign and then in the letter of the god to the king contradicts the idea
of A. L. Oppenheim, who claimed that the royal report was read on the occasion of the king’s
entry into the city of Aššur, Oppenheim 1960, 143.
 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 331

5. on the basis of the royal report, this oracle was rewritten as a divine letter
in response to the king;
6. the divine letter was then sent to the king,
7. who was then allowed to perform his triumphal procession and to enter
the Aššur temple.

The above reconstruction reveals that the king and the god, i.e. the institutions
of the palace and the temple, were the main agents in the communication pro-
cess. The small number of royal reports and divine letters suggests that this
particular form of communication was not standard, but performed only when
royal actions necessitated divine legitimization. Actions requiring legitimiza-
tion of this kind could include the abduction of the gods of the enemy and the
destruction of their sanctuaries as described in Sargon II’s report on his cam-
paign to Urartu, or the case of fratricide embedded in Esarhaddon’s report on
his campaign to Šubria.31 Divine legitimization is cited in Aššur’s letter to Ash-
urbanipal regarding the rebellion of Ashurbanipal’s brother Šamaš-šum-ukīn,
who was governor of Babylonia and was killed by Ashurbanipal during the
civil war.
The fact that Sargon II’s treasurer and scholar are only mentioned briefly
in the colophon of Sargon II’s report should not mislead us about the extent
to which the religious and political elites were involved in this exchange be-
tween the king and the god. Similarly, the fact that the text was found in the
library of the chief exorcist and carries a colophon attributing it to a scholar
rather than to the king should not lead us to assume that we are dealing with
a text of private nature, written by a scribe to celebrate the king’s success, as
has been suggested by Louis D. Levine.32 The chief exorcist’s library includes
tablets from the Middle Assyrian period and from the late eighth century BCE;
it also reflects the idiosyncratic choices and preferences of Kiṣir-Aššur, the
chief exorcist under Ashurbanipal. This context points to the secondary or even
tertiary storage of Sargon II’s report to Aššur.33 The texts assembled in the
library, itself an educational center for young scribes, demonstrate that the
interests of the chief exorcist extended far beyond the performance of purifica-
tion rites at the Aššur temple. The chief exorcist was the central figure in the
organization of the cult of the Aššur temple and in the collection, compilation,
and production of the body of cultural knowledge of the time. Simo Parpola34

31 See fn. 10.

32 Levine 2003.
33 Pedersén 1986, 44 f. and Maul 1994, 159.
34 Parpola, LAS II, 3 ff.
332 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

and Hayim Tadmor35 have long cautioned against understanding the title
“chief scribe” as referring to a scribe merely in the technical sense of the word.
On the contrary, the colophon of Sargon II’s report testifies to the degree to
which the scholar responsible for cultic affairs at the Aššur temple and the
treasurer were involved in ensuring that the necessary steps were taken to al-
low Sargon II to enter the city.
It is difficult to determine the precise character of the relationship between
Sargon II and his scholars, or that of his relationship with the religious elites
in Aššur. It seems that in addition to Sargon II’s treasurer, his governor Ṭāb-
ṣil-Ešarra36 performed most of the tasks that required Sargon II’s presence in
Aššur. Regarding the king’s cooperation with the religious elites, Sargon II
tends to emphasize two acts in his commemorative inscriptions: 1) his explicit
ceremonial performance of the New Year festival as recorded in his annals,
which follows the model of Babylonian kingship,37 and 2) his establishment of
tax exempt status not only for the traditional Babylonian cultic centers, but
also for the cities of Aššur and Harran, as is proclaimed in a text known in
Assyriological literature as the Aššur Charter.38 While this text could be an ex-
pression of Sargon II’s personal interest in the city of Aššur, it seems more
likely to assume that by the end of the eighth century BCE the political and
religious elites in Aššur had achieved a status of sufficient political and reli-
gious importance to enable them to claim (and receive) such privileges. Irre-
spective of what Sargon II did or did not do to arouse the indignation of the
citizenry of Aššur, he seems to have avoided visiting the city even for state
rituals as so far we have no evidence for his presence in Aššur. Certain promi-
nent figures in Aššur appear to have possessed the power to regulate his entry
to the city on the occasion of his triumphal procession, which normally includ-
ed the offering of at least part of the booty seized on campaign to the Aššur
temple. Esarhaddon’s effort to ingratiate himself with the elites of Aššur in his
inscriptions by emphasizing that he too composed or perhaps simply con-
firmed the Aššur Charter ([kā]ṣir kidinnūt BAL.TILki)39 is still another indication
of the king’s accountability to the elites of Assyria’s cultic center.
The question, then, is whether or not the reconstructed sequence of events
that preceded Sargon II’s entry into Aššur represents standard procedure. If it
does, then can this sequence of events, which clearly demonstrates the authori-

35 Tadmor 1981, 31.

36 See his correspondence with Sargon II in Parpola 1987, nos. 75‒109.
37 Fuchs 1994, 156 ll. 320‒321.
38 Chamaza 1992.
39 RINAP 4, no. 48: 41.
 The Legitimating Command of Aššur: Royal Reports and Divine Letters 333

ty of Aššur’s political and religious elites, be assumed to have operated as early

as the time of Šamšī-Adad V (823‒811 BCE) and Shalmaneser IV (783‒773 BCE)?
It is also possible to argue that the fact that Sargon II’s royal report was found
in the exorcist’s library suggests that it was intended to serve as a model for
future kings and to remind them that their victory belonged to the god Aššur.
In either case, even if religious authority was not able to constrain arbitrary
royal behavior and hubris, it nevertheless retained its influence over the formu-
lation of a positive image for rulership and the enhancement of its prestige,
thereby contributing to the stability of political power. By means of the ritual
actions performed during the king’s triumphal procession to the Aššur temple,
Aššur’s religious elite reinforced the message of Aššur’s kingship and the
king’s stewardship as proclaimed in the Assyrian coronation ritual. At some
point, denying the king’s right to perform his duty as the chief šangû of the
god Aššur must have been detrimental to the king’s individual rulership. A
denial of this kind would presumably have prompted the king to engage and
placate the various stakeholders in the network of power rather than to keep
acting altogether unilaterally. The influence of ritual on the exercise of political
power thus entails more than protecting the king from any culpability resulting
from political mistakes in the performance of his office.40 Ritual assumes a
corrective function, as it reminds the king of his personal responsibility.
In the process of textualizing the king’s deeds, by contrast, the scholars
took on a crucial role in shaping the cultural memory of the individual king.
Unfortunately, we do not have a divine letter of the god Aššur legitimizing
Sargon II’s pillage of the sacred center of the Urartian kings. It is therefore not
possible to determine whether Aššur’s religious elite attempted to manipulate
the system of communication in order to support the harmonious balance be-
tween earthly and heavenly powers, which would have translated into a posi-
tive relationship between the city of Aššur and the king. Scholarly views on
the importance of acting in accordance with the will of the gods is expressed
in the text of the Sin of Sargon, which, as has been emphasized by Tadmor and
Lanfranchi, is a product of the scholarly milieu and implies that both Sargon II
and his son and successor Sennacherib paid for their actions with their own
untimely deaths.41
The situation of Sennacherib’s successors Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal
was different, as both kings challenged tradition by deviating from the law of

40 Such is the argument suggested by Lanfranchi 2003, 104.

41 See Lanfranchi 2003, 107 for the distinction between the institutional and personal figure
of the king, and his emphasis that it is the private person of the king that pays for royal
misdeeds. For the text see Tadmor, Landsberger, and Parpola 1989.
334 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

primogeniture. In addition to making use of the text categories discussed

above, both Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal promoted themselves as models of
governance conducive to the cosmic order. To this end, they relied on prophecy
and the divine omen compendia, which they either transformed or reused for
their self-promotion or for political purposes.

9.3 The Goddess Ištar and the King

Under King Esarhaddon, royal ideological discourse regarding the control of
knowledge shifted from a focus on technology in the proper sense to expertise
in divinatory techniques. The ideal image of the king now centered primarily
on knowledge of how to communicate with the gods in order to comply public-
ly with the cosmic design and of how to act in accordance with the divine will.
Central to this communication was knowledge of the proper performance of
extispicy, of how gods could be appeased in case of portentous omina, and of
how to protect oneself by means of exorcistic rituals and prayers. These themes
surface repeatedly in the correspondence between the scholars and the king
and are even mentioned in commemorative inscriptions.
In addition to deductive techniques like extispicy, i.e. the reading of the
exta of a sacrificial animal, and lecanomancy, i.e. the inspection of water in a
basin, the religious traditions of ancient Syria and Anatolia in particular culti-
vated the practice of prophecy and dream oracles.42 Although the storm god
was the central figure in prophecy in northern Syria, the other powerful figure
voicing divine intentionality was Ištar – formerly Ištar-Šauška – who during
the late Sargonid period assumed the role of the midwife and wet nurse to the
crown prince while simultaneously providing him with her oracles.43 Accord-
ingly, in addition to being the legitimate heir in genealogical terms and being
the designated crown prince through confirmation by means of the swearing
of loyalty oaths, the crown prince was supported by his institutional relation-
ship with the goddess, which served as a central cultural strategy for establish-
ing the king and sacralizing his rulership.44 It was Esarhaddon in particular

42 Nissinen 2003.
43 Pongratz-Leisten 2003.
44 Beckman 2000, 18. The most important information with regard to the medical duties and
the work of the midwife stem from literary texts such as hymns and myths describing diverse
goddesses performing the role of the midwife, among them the goddess Ninisina of Isin. In his
book on childbirth, Martin Stol summarizes the midwife’s tasks as follows: “She makes the
woman sit on the bricks of the birth, she may have punctured the amniotic sac, she delivers
the child, cuts the umbilical cord, disposes of the afterbirth. She applies ointments to the
 The Goddess Ištar and the King 335

who exploited this institution for his succession politics and who disregarded
the custom of installing the eldest son as crown prince.
In the cultural history of Mesopotamia, the role of Inanna/Ištar as mediator
between the leader of the pantheon and the king and her empowering of the
king in his office was originally clad in the relational framework of the hieros
gamos, which can be traced back as far as the Early Dynastic period and which
persisted through the Ur III and Isin/Larsa periods.45 This sexual metaphor
allowed Inanna to confer the divine blessing on the king in her capacity as
the divine assembly’s representative, thereby establishing the king’s intimate
relationship with the divine world and granting him his share of divine know-
ledge.46 Inanna’s blessing was an expression of Enlil’s and An’s approval of
the king’s correct performance of his royal duties, which entailed the proper
care for the cult of the gods.47
It is interestingly in the ideological discourse of pre-Sargonic Lagaš that
Inanna is attested for the first time in the role of the midwife. In Eannatum’s
Stele of the Vultures (ca. 2450 B.C.) we read the following:

[Lor]d? [Ni]ngirsu, [war]rior of [En]lil (3 cases frag.) [Ni]n[gir]su [imp]lanted the [semen]
for E[a]natum in the [wom]b (2 cases broken) and […] rejoiced over [Eanatum]. Inana
accompanied him, named him Eana-Inana-Ibgalakakatum,48 and set him on the special
lap of Ninhursag. Ninhursag [offered him] her special breast. Ningirsu rejoiced over Eana-
tum, semen implanted in the womb by Ningirsu. Ningirsu laid his span upon him, for (a

mother and rubs the newborn.” Stol 2000, 171. See also the Sumerian hymn to the goddess
Ninisina of Isin, which describes with great precision her role as a midwife:
SRT 6 rev. iii 1‒8//SRT 7 ll. 11‒19
“For the thousands of young maidens to establish fertility,
to regulate the womb, to cut the umbilical cord, to determine the fates,
to support the door of the Nigin-gar, to let the fetus come to a successful completion,
the human child, after it has been received in the lap – to make it cry loudly,
to put the belly downwards, to turn it upside down,
to perform? the nugig-ship, to act quickly, to sing proper praise,
when she has made manifest the great me,
and my Lady, has spoken the hymn of praise,
Ninisina fittingly praise yourself!”
The exaltation of Ninisina in the period of the Isin Dynasty results in her merger with Inanna
of Uruk and her adoption of Inanna’s epithets and function as “great lady of the gods” and as
a warrior-like goddess. For the edition of that text see, Römer 1969.
45 Cooper 1993; Steinkeller 1999; Lapinkivi 2004.
46 Pongratz-Leisten 2008.
47 Pongratz-Leisten 2008, 55.
48 “Worthy in the Eana of Inana of the Ibgal.”
336 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

length of) five forearms he set his forearm upon him: (he measured) five forearms (cubits),
one span! Ningirsu, with great joy, [gave him] the kin[gship of Lagaš].49

Placing the newborn crown prince on the knees of his parent is performed by
Inanna, who places the child on the lap of the mother goddess Ninhursag in
the rhetoric of royal ideology.50 In Eannatum’s case, Inanna also assumes the
role of the father by calling the crown prince by his throne-name. As such,
Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures is the very earliest attestation of the cultural
metaphor relating to Inanna’s central role in legally accepting and naming
newborn children, and in establishing the social relationship between the king
and the divine world.
By the Isin-Larsa period at the latest, the legal act of naming was absorbed
by the chief god of the pantheon. This is attested in the royal self-praise of
Išme-Dagan:

He (Enlil) named me with a favorable name even when my seed was inserted into the
womb. Nintud stood at my birth, and she established the office of en for me …, even when
my umbilical cord was cut. Enlil, my principal deity, bestowed on me the shepherdship
of Sumer, and assigned to me a tireless protective goddess … He selected me from my
people, and announced me to the land …51

Drawing exclusively on Early Dynastic evidence from Lagaš (though it does

form part of what I would call the Tigridian cultural zone) to explain Neo-
Assyrian cultural choices in the development of royal ideology might seem far-
fetched to some readers. It is also possible to refer to later Syro-Anatolian tradi-
tion, which has much to offer regarding the conceptualization of Ištar as a
prophesying deity and as midwife and wet nurse to the crown prince.
Ištar’s role as midwife and wet nurse to the crown prince is already attested
at the royal court of Tupkiš at Urkeš around 2250 BCE. Here, even the name of
the midwife is known from her own seal.52 Of particular interest for our discus-
sion is the seal of King Tupkiš himself, which shows him seated on a throne
with a lion reclined at his feet. The crown prince is standing on the lion’s head,
visually conveying a dynastic message by touching his father’s lap. A divinity –

49 Stele of the Vultures, Ean. 1 iv 9‒12, Cooper, SARI I, 34.

50 Heimpel 2000. For attestations see Sjöberg and Bergmann 1969, 142 f. This role of Ninhurs-
ag, assumed on the human level by the father, supports Peter Steinkeller’s view that the “earli-
est Sumerian pantheon was dominated by female deities,” Steinkeller 1999, 113, a position that
has, however, been questioned recently by Michalowski, 2002.
51 Išme-Dagan A 43 ff., see Reisman 1970; Jacobsen 1987, 112‒124; Römer 1989, 659‒673; Ja-
cobsen 1997, 547‒550.
52 Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 1997, 83.
 The Goddess Ištar and the King 337

Fig. 54: Seal of Tupkish (after Buccellati and Buccellati 1997, 78).

quite possibly Ištar – feeds the lion, while a star hovers in front of her (fig. 54).
Nurses are further known from the royal court of Mari during the Old Babyloni-
an period.53 These women entered into contractual relations and were paid in
grain, silver, or gold,54 as is shown by a later inventory of gifts from king Tuš-
ratta of Mitanni.55 A text from Nuzi seems to indicate that the wet nurse “re-
tained a certain degree of importance long after her duties were finished.”56
Hittite mythology explicitly refers to the performance of the midwife in the
Hurrian-derived Song of Ullikummi, in which “the midwives aided the delivery
of the monster Ullikummi and the Nurses, the Fate and Mother goddesses,
lifted him and placed him on the knees of his father. The father expressed his
joy and named the child. The same child-lifting occurred in the Appu story, also
of Hurrian derivation, but only the Nurse, written logographically UMMEDA,

53 Dossin 1971, 65 vii 32; see also ARMT 10 92, ARMT 10 43.
54 San Nicolò 1932.
55 Moran 1992, EA 25 iii 62.
56 Morrison 1979, fn. 75. In the Hittite context magic knowledge probably expanded from the
office of midwifery, a proposal advanced by G. Beckman on the basis of the term “old woman,”
which is frequently used in magical texts, see Beckman 1983, 232‒235.
338 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

is mentioned.”57 Hittite mythology thus conveys the two important legal acts
of taking the infant and naming the infant, the latter being done by the father,
who thereby recognizes and accepts the newborn child. The legal act of taking
the child was considered so important that it became a motif in Hittite birth
rituals.58
Assyrian ideological discourse combined the role of Inanna/Ištar as mid-
wife and wet nurse with her role as a prophesying deity who intervened on
behalf of the crown prince and future king. Prophetic intervention by Ištar is
also attested in Ešnunna, once more in the Tigridian region, and in the only
Old Babylonian oracle of southern Babylonia that is spoken by the goddess
Nanaya of Uruk rather than Inanna/Ištar of Uruk.59 Ešnunna was as much part
of the Tigridian cultural horizon as it was of the Sumero-Babylonian alluvial
plain, and the two oracles of Ešnunna spoken by Ištar-Kitītum60 may therefore
be considered the earliest examples of a cultural strategy inspired by northern
Mesopotamian and Syro-Anatolian practice rather than Sumero-Babylonian
tradition.61 It is probably Ištar-Šauška of Ninet/Nineveh – referred to in the
Mari letters62 – who provided the model for conceptualizing Ištar-Kitītum as a
prophesying deity in the kingdom of Ešnunna where, in a retrospective prophe-
cy, she acknowledges King Ibal-pi-El II’s succession to the throne.63 As pointed
out in Chapter Three, the cult of Ištar-Šauška at Nineveh had become so impor-
tant by the Old Babylonian period that Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE) read the
oracles (têrētum) before going on campaign. He wrote to his son:

The oracle readings that I have done here (i.e. at Nineveh) have been very favorable. They
yielded a presage of glory. This is what they say about this enemy: “You will not meet
with failure.” [The oracle readings] carried your sign. You will [def]eat them. You [will
ach]ieve [triumph]. Get your troops [into formation]: you do [not] risk falling into an am-
bush.”64

Although Jean-Marie Durand has drawn attention to the fact that têrtum can
also have the meaning of oracle, it is not entirely clear whether the above letter
refers to extispicy or prophecy.65

57 Pringle 1993, esp. 133.

58 Beckman 1977, Text C § 6.
59 Thus Westenholz 2007, 317‒324, who provided a new edition of the text.
60 de Jong Ellis 1987; Moran 1993.
61 I would consider the late Neo-Assyrian reference to Ištar-Urkittu, i.e. Ištar of Uruk, as a
prophesying deity to be a late scholarly development rather than a reflection of the prophesy-
ing Ištar originating in Uruk, pace Dalley 2010.
62 ARMT 26/1 no. 192:16.
63 Pongratz-Leisten 2003, 157 ff.
64 ARM I 60 (LAPO II 672), translation after Ziegler 2005, 25.
65 Durand, ARMT 26/1, 379 f.
 The Goddess Ištar and the King 339

Prophecy is, however, certainly the oracular mode of Ištar-Kitītum’s com-

munication with Daduša’s successor King Ibal-pi-El II (1179‒1765 BCE), in
which Kitītum posthumously predicts a successful reign for him:

Kitītum Oracle FLP 1674:

O King Ibal-pi-El! Thus speaks the goddess Kitītum: “The secrets of the gods lie before
me, (and) because the invocation of my name is ever in your mouth, I shall reveal to you
one by one the secrets (niṣrētu) of the gods. At the advice of the gods, and by the com-
mand of Anu, the country is given you to rule. You will loosen the sandals of (+ legally
take in possession?) the Upper and Lower Country, you will have at your disposal the
treasures of the Upper and Lower Country. Your economy will not diminish. Wherever in
the land your hand has laid hold, there will be permanent ‘food of peace.’ (And) I, Kitī-
tum, will strengthen the foundations of your throne. I have provided you with a protective
spirit. May your [e]ar be attentive to me!”66

The divine design that Kitītum shares with the king, here referred to as the
‘secrets of the gods,’ revelass that Ibal-pi-El II’s kingdom will expand to include
the Upper and Lower lands, that the economy will prosper, and that his rule
will be stable.67 Following Jack Sasson, in an earlier article I stressed the for-
mal judicial language that Kitītum uses to authorize the king’s rulership at the
end of the oracle: “And I, Kitītum, will strengthen the foundations of your
throne.” Legal language of this kind was used by powerful kings to declare
their support of a newcomer to the throne, as is demonstrated by the following
example taken from a statement made by king Zimrilim of Mari quoting the
king of Ešnunna: “As for Zimrilim, I myself have set him on the throne. I want
to do what strengthens him and what secures the foundations of his throne.”68
The effect of such language in the context of prophecy is not to be underesti-
mated, as it ties prophecy to divinatory practices and provides it with a legal
overtone.
Clear evidence for Ištar-Šauška’s role in prophecy during the second half
of the second millennium comes from Hittite Anatolia, in particular from the
reign of Hattušili III (1267‒ca. 1240 BCE) and from his Apology.69 At least eight
different versions of Hattušili III’s Apology have been found in the storeroom

66 de Jong Ellis 1987.

67 Contrary to what I stated in my former article, Pongratz-Leisten 2003, 159, I now interpret
niṣrētu as the positive aspects referring to the king’s reign, as laid out by Kitītum, i.e. the
divine design for the king.
68 Durand 1987b; Sasson 1998, 463. For a similar wording see Zimri-Lim’s letter A.1153 refer-
ring to Yarim-Lim of Halab: “It is my father who brought me to my throne, who will strengthen
me and will secure the foundation of my throne,” (Sasson, ibid., 464).
69 Hoffner 1975.
340 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

of the Great Temple of the Lower City in Hattuša, which suggests the great
importance that the Hittites assigned to the text. It was written at least ten
years after Hattušili III deposed and exiled his nephew Urhi-Tešub. As noted by
Hayim Tadmor, this apologetic account of the king’s usurpation of the throne
is extremely illuminating as a parallel for Esarhaddon.70 Like Hattušili III’s
Apology, which in fact represents a Stiftungsurkunde for Ištar of Samuha, Esar-
haddon’s Apology was not conceived as a reflection on the past but “rather to
serve certain imminent political aims in the present or some particular design
for the future.”71 In Hattušili III’s Apology there is a reference to Ištar-Šauška
sending a dream oracle through Muwatalli, the eldest son of Muršili II, as an
expression of divine support for Hattušili III’s claim to rulership:

§ 1 (Col. i:1‒4) Thus Tabarna Hattušili (III), Great King, King of Hatti, son of Muršili (II),
Great King, King of Hatti, grandson of Šuppiluliuma, Great King, King of Hatti, descend-
ant of Hattušili (I), King of Kuššar.

Prooemium
§ 2 (i:5‒8) Ištar’s divine providence I will proclaim. Let Man hear it! And may in future
His Majesty’s son, his grandson (and further) offspring of His Majesty be respectful among
the gods towards Ištar!

Hattušili (III)’s early youth; Ištar’s first intervention:

§ 3 (i:9‒21) My father Muršili begot us four children: Halpašulupi, Muwatalli, Hattušili
(III) and Maššanauzzi, a daughter. Of all these I was the youngest child. As long as I was
still a boy, I was ‘one-of-the-reins’ (chariot-driver). (Now), Ištar, my Lady, sent Muwatalli,
my brother to Muršili, my father, through a dream (saying): “For Hattušili (III) the years
(are) short, he is not to live (long). Hand him over to me, and let him be my priest, so he
(will) live.” My father took me up, (while still) a boy, and handed me (over) to the service
of the goddess, and as a priest I brought offerings to the goddess. At the hand of Ištar,
My Lady, I experienced prosperity, and Ištar, My Lady, took me by the hand and provided
for me.72

Hattušili III had been the youngest of four children and of fragile health,73
which helps explain why he was initially assigned as a priest to the goddess
Ištar. Later, when he had become king, he would constantly turn to her for
guidance:

(i:51‒60) In times of fear the goddess, My Lady, never abandoned me, neither to my
enemy nor to my opponent or rival did she ever leave me. Whether it was some word from
an enemy, from an opponent in court, or from the palace circle, Ištar, My lady shielded

70 Tadmor 1983.
71 Tadmor 1983, 37.
72 Translation after van den Hout 1997, 199.
73 Van den Hout 1995.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 341

me in every way, favored me, and delivered enemies and rivals into my hands, for me to
finish them off.

As is clear from several oracles,74 toward the end of his reign King Hattušili III
decided to install his son Tudhaliya IV as co-regent in order to secure his line
of succession and to prevent Kurunta, his nephew and the King of Tarhuntaša,
from seizing the throne of Hattuša.75 The close relationship between Ištar and
the king and the reliance on oracular inquiry to legitimize royal action in the
context of succession reemerge in the late Sargonid period, as both Esarhad-
don and Ashurbanipal are younger sons of the king who are appointed as suc-
cessors to the throne.

9.4 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice and his

Reformulation of the Assyrian Rules of Succession
9.4.1 Esarhaddon’s Rise to Power

Although the Hittite evidence precedes Esarhaddon by five hundred years, Es-
arhaddon’s decision to favor his younger son Ashurbanipal in the succession to
the throne while making his elder son Šamaš-šum-ukīn governor of Babylonia
closely parallels the Hittite precedent. It is possible that Hattušili III’s Apology
survived into the Sargonid period – not so much as a text but as a cultural
discourse or practice that persisted within international cultural memory and
served as a model for Esarhaddon, who then framed his own accession to the
throne in a similar discourse. In contrast to Hattušili III, however, Esarhaddon
does not rely on dream oracles but on prophecy. Oracles, mostly spoken by
Ištar, were collected together on tablets in order to articulate a narrative that
justified Esarhaddon’s plans for the irregular appointment of his younger son
Ashurbanipal as crown prince designate. The fact that it is Ištar who represents
the divine protagonist in this divine-human communication among both Hitti-
tes and Assyrians constitutes further evidence of the intense cultural interac-
tion between Hittite and Assyrian scholarly circles in the Middle Assyrian pe-
riod.

74 Though not necessarily prophecies, as the oracles are referred to as KIN-oracles (see van
den Hout 1991), which are to be linked with extispicy.
75 Van den Hout 1991. The prayers of Hattušili III and Paduhepa to the sun goddess of Arinna
confirm the narrative of the apology, see Sürenhagen 1981.
342 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

In his pioneering study of Esarhaddon’s Apology, which constitutes the in-

troductory section to the longest historical prism inscription from Nineveh
(Nineveh A now RINAP 4 no. 1), Hayim Tadmor defined the text as an “unusual
literary form” expressing an “equally unusual political situation,”76 namely the
deliberate failure to abide by the norm of primogeniture.
Esarhaddon came to power during the civil war that broke out after the
murder of his father Sennacherib (704‒681 BCE).77 Esarhaddon’s succession
has been the subject of extensive recent research,78 so I will only reflect on
those points that contribute to an understanding of the arrangement of the
oracle collections. As Barbara Porter79 has demonstrated, it is very difficult to
reconstruct the events surrounding Esarhaddon’s rise to power because very
few of his father Sennacherib’s inscriptions survive from the late years of his
reign. Those that do survive focus primarily on the destruction of Babylon,
his raid against the Arabs, and the building of the festival house in Aššur.
Nevertheless, the barrel cylinder commemorating the construction of Esarhad-
don’s succession palace in Aššur and the Gift of Sennacherib for Esarhad-
don80 – which mentions Esarhaddon’s throne name Aššur-eṭellu-mukîn-apli –
clearly testify to Sennacherib’s intention to install Esarhaddon as his successor
to the throne.81 Furthermore, a fragment of a loyalty oath may very well have
recorded arrangements for Esarhaddon’s appointment as crown prince, though
his name is not preserved.82 Such arrangements were necessary because, al-
though it is not stated officially in any surviving text, the eldest son normally
inherited the throne.83 When royal succession did not comply with the norm
of primogeniture, as is the case with Esarhaddon and his successor Ashurbani-
pal, this was cause for extensive justification in the royal inscriptions of these
kings. The principle of primogeniture is also clearly expressed in the following
statement of one of Esarhaddon’s advisers, recorded in a letter:

76 Tadmor 1983, 38; see further the contribution by Ishida 1991. On the passage Nineveh A i 23
see Frahm 2009. See Frahm 2010 for a possible connection of the letter YBC 11382 denouncing
Esarhaddon’s magnates, who were involved in a revolt against the king and his crown prince.
77 Parpola 1980.
78 See the bibliography in Leichty, RINAP 4, 10‒11 given for Prism A.
79 Porter 1993, 14.
80 SAA 12 no. 88.
81 Porter 1993, 14 with fn. 19.
82 SAA 2 no. 3.
83 See the discussion by Garelli 1979 and by Barbara Porter 1993, 15 fn. 22; see further Pon-
gratz-Leisten 1997b.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 343

What has not been done in heaven, the king, my lord, has done upon earth and shown
us: you have girded a son of yours with headband and entrusted him kingship of Assyria;
your eldest son you have put (up) to the kingship in Babylon.84

Overruling the principle of primogeniture had to be legitimized through specific

cultural practices in order for the new king to secure the loyalty of his contem-
poraries and the acceptance of future generations, which can explain the un-
usual text of Esarhaddon’s Apology and the compilation of oracle collections.
It is not entirely clear if Sennacherib originally expected his eldest son
Aššur-nādin-šumi to succeed him to the throne; it is also unclear if Aššur-nā-
din-šumi’s installation as governor of Babylonia was intended to prepare him
for future kingship in Assyria,85 or whether this arrangement was intended to
be permanent. The latter is assumed by Kwasman and Parpola on the basis of
certain documents that mention Sennacherib’s other son Urda-Mullissi both by
name and by the title mār šarri, indicating the king’s intention to install him
as his heir to the throne.86 Aššur-nādin-šumi was killed in a conspiracy of the
Babylonians and Elamites, which eventually led to Sennacherib’s devastating
destruction of Babylon. Around 698 BCE Sennacherib appears to have desig-
nated his second son Urda-Mullissi as his successor to the throne, and it seems
that Urda-Mullissi held this position for over a dozen years until his sudden
and enforced resignation in 684 BCE. The reasons for Urda-Mullissi’s dismissal
are unknown. It is likely that Sennacherib’s powerful wife Naqia had some-
thing to do with it,87 convincing him to install his younger son Esarhaddon
(her son, too) as crown prince and heir apparent in the year 683 BCE. Esarhad-
don would not ordinarily have been next in line for the succession, as he states
in his Apology: “I am my older brother’s youngest brother.”88 Even before Sen-

84 SAA 10 no. 185; pace Radner 2003, 166 who concludes on this basis that the king could
choose his successor from among all males of the royal line and that there was no established
custom of primogeniture. See further the example of Tiglath-Pileser III, who, although a mem-
ber of the royal family, was not the designated heir and usurped the throne. It is probably for
this reason that he avoids including his filiation in his inscriptions, see most recently Tadmor
and Yamada in the introduction to RINAP 1, 12. In Mesopotamia norms of succession appear
to have varied according to time and place, Heimpel 1992.
85 A different view is presented by Frahm 1997, 19 who contends that Sennacherib installed
his first-born son Aššur-nādin-šumi as governor in Babylon and his second son Urda-mullissi
as crown prince and heir apparent; the latter was demoted in 683 BCE in favor of Esarhaddon.
Frahm does express doubt about this, however, as a relief from Lachish shows the king in the
company of a crown prince already in 701.
86 Kwasman and Parpola SAA 6, XXXII‒XXXIV.
87 Melville 1999 downplays the role of Naqia.
88 Porter 1993, 16 and RINAP 4 no. 1 i 8.
344 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

nacherib’s murder – probably at the hands of the unhappy Urda-Mullissi89 –

Esarhaddon had to confront the conflicting factions struggling for power in
Assyria. Sennacherib sent Esarhaddon to the Western frontier, perhaps in order
to keep him safe from such infighting; it should be noted that Esarhaddon’s
claim to have been the beneficiary of this kind of protection from his father is
unique in Assyrian-Babylonian history and raises some doubts about the actual
relationship between Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. It is, however, from the
Western frontier that Esarhaddon would eventually make his way through
Hanigalbat toward Nineveh to take the throne. Erle Leichty has recently argued
persuasively that Esarhaddon might have reconsolidated his forces in Harran,
which could be the Sargonid dynasty’s original home.90
In the introduction to Esarhaddon’s Apology – written long after Esarhad-
don’s succession to the throne in 673 BCE in order to justify his decision to
appoint Ashurbanipal as his successor91 – Esarhaddon refers to the two impor-
tant stages of his own rise to power, namely his appointment as crown prince
in the month Nisannu of the year 683 BCE92 and his ascension to the throne on
the 18th of Addaru (XII) 680 BCE. These two dates frame the civil war period
described at length in his Apology. Esarhaddon’s Apology is strikingly similar to
the oracle collections from his reign, and both are deeply concerned with the
period of civil war that followed Esarhaddon’s appointment as crown prince.
Furthermore, the Apology argues that the gods favored the kingship of Esarhad-
don over that of his brothers: favorable omens and oracles confirm Sennacher-
ib’s preference for Esarhaddon and his elevation to the status of crown prince
designate is presented as the implementation of divine will.93 The political mes-
sage of Esarhaddon’s Apology is further strengthened by his unusual self-intro-
duction, which, unlike the royal genealogies typical of the titulary at the begin-
ning of royal inscriptions, stresses the question of divine election (i 5‒7). More-
over, intertextual connections with mythic texts like Lugal-e, the Erra Epic, and

89 Parpola 1980.
90 Leichty 2007. This argument is supported not only by the fact that three kings have theo-
phoric names with the divine element Sîn and that Sîn figures prominently in their royal in-
scriptions (so Leichty), but also by the fact that the queen mother Naqia is represented holding
a mirror in her hand, a motif typical of Syro-Anatolian representation (Parrot and Nougayrol
1956.
91 Tadmor 1983, 37; Parpola, SAA 9, LXIX‒LXX; Nissinen 1998, 15.
92 For the date of Esarhaddon’s appointment as crown prince see Kwasman and Parpola SAA
6, XXXIII‒XXXIV and Nissinen 1998, 18.
93 See the quotation of the relevant passage in Chapter 8.1.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 345

the royal inscriptions of his predecessors Sargon II and Sennacherib94 serve to

bolster Esarhaddon’s arguments and to justify his political actions.

9.4.2 Esarhaddon’s Oracle Collections

The prophecies recorded in Esarhaddon’s reign represent an important addi-

tion to the discussion of the literarization of particular royal agendas. Sargonid
scholarly tradition maintained two basic formats for the transmission of pro-
phetic reports: the horizontal format of the uʾiltu and the vertical format of the
ṭuppu. Tablets with a horizontal format dealt with notes, omen reports, re-
ceipts, etc., and were disposable, while the ṭuppu format, on the contrary, was
used for treaties, census lists, balance accounts, treasury inventories, royal de-
crees and ordinances,95 lexical lists, and literary texts, and was designed for
archival storage. Neo-Assyrian prophecies have been found in both formats,
with single reports in the libraries of Nineveh being recorded in the uʾiltu for-
mat and oracle collections in the multi-column ṭuppu format. Karel van der
Toorn stresses the enduring significance of the Neo-Assyrian oracle collec-
tions,96 which are the subject of the following discussion.
Much information can be gleaned from the format and formulation of
these tablets. First, Simo Parpola has made the critical observation that, judg-
ing from sign forms and other scribal idiosyncracies, all the single oracle re-
ports were written by different scribal hands, while the four oracle collections
were all compiled by the same scribe.97 Second, the single oracle reports usu-
ally begin with a brief note introducing the oracle, sometimes specifying its
origin, context, or date, such as “the word of Ištar of Arbela [to the king’s
mother …];”98 “the prophetess Mullissu-kabtat (has said);”99 or “words [con-
cerning the Elam]ites.”100 In the oracle collections of the multi-column tablets
these “notes follow the oracle and are rigorously standardized,”101 while “the
individual oracles on the tablet and the authorship indications following them

94 See Johannes Bach’s work on intertextuality in Esarhaddon’s Apology, presented at my

workshop on May 9, 2014.
95 Parpola 1997, liii.
96 Van der Toorn 2000.
97 Parpola, SAA 9, LV.
98 SAA 9 no. 5:1.
99 SAA 9 no. 7:1.
100 SAA 9 no. 8:1.
101 Parpola, SAA 9, LXII.
346 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

are separated from each other by a horizontal ruling.”102 Third, each oracle
collection was originally preceded by an introductory section. In the second
column of the first collection this section consists of ten lines now completely
lost, which are separated from a postscript by a double ruling that is in turn
separated by a single ruling from the corpus of the oracles that follow. In the
third oracle collection, the introductory section probably included a statement
about Esarhaddon’s success in stabilizing his rule over Assyria, as expressed in
the formulas of a declarative speech act: “Heaven and earth are [well]; Ešarra
is [wel]l; Esarhaddon, king of Assyria is [well].”103 Subsequently, the text seems
to refer to a ritual performance in the Aššur temple, which is signaled by state-
ments like “before Aššur” and “they come” and “burn (aromatics).”
Why should one distinguish between the tablets carrying single reports
and the multi-column oracle collections? For the most part, prophecy, “from
the view of the communication process, does not presuppose any literary activ-
ity at all.”104 Because the king was not present when oracles were taken, how-
ever, the divine message needed to be written down to ensure effective trans-
mission; this is the purpose of the uʾiltu format.105 Simply committing an oracle
to writing involved the use of a refined literary form that was not only “adjust-
ed to necessary scribal conventions and stylized according to the prevailing
customs”106 but also aimed at intelligibility, so that the oracular message could
be readily understood by its recipient, in most cases the Neo-Assyrian king.107
In this context, standardized introductory formulas and subscripts facilitated
the identification of the origin of the oracle as well its mediator. The formulaic
framework used to transmit the message in writing is, consequently, compa-
rable to that of astrological reports or omen reports.108 While the uʾiltu format
has the character of a disposable document not necessarily intended for long-
term preservation, “the ṭuppu format, in contrast, is intentionally designed for
archival storage.”109 This suggests that oracle collections were designed to be
preserved for posterity.

102 Parpola, SAA 9, LVI.

103 SAA 9 no. 3:9‒11.
104 Nissinen 2000, 241.
105 Radner 1997, 52‒68.
106 Nissinen 2000, 244.
107 Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 267; van der Toorn 2007, 111.
108 On the basis of three oracles from Mari spoken by the same prophetess and dealing with
the same event but sent to the king by three different persons, Karel van der Toorn has recently
demonstrated how much the account of an oracle can differ according to the person who
reports on the event: “The texts give only the gist of the oracle of the prophetess, each using
its own words while pretending to quote hers.” (Van der Toorn 2007, 113).
109 Nissinen 2000, 248.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 347

As compilations on multi-column tablets, the oracle collections represent

a new literary format. This format can be counted among the other new text
categories that emerged under Esarhaddon, like his Apology,110 or among text
categories that became more prominent during the Sargonid period, like Royal
Reports justifying exceptional royal actions. Fratricide, for instance, forms the
background for Esarhaddon’s report on his campaign to Šubria,111 which, al-
though not overtly stated, was intended to justify the murder of his brother
Urda-Mullisi and his followers, whose claim to the Assyrian throne threatened
Esarhaddon’s succession. Divine Letters were also part of this intense literary
production and are represented by texts like Ashurbanipal’s Fictive Dialogue
between Ashurbanipa and Nabûl,112 and Aššur’s Letter to Ashurbanipal,113 which
sanctions the king’s killing of his brother Šamaš-šum-ukīn, the governor of
Babylon.
Although the oracle collections share in the historical argument advanced
by these various texts, they should be approached in the broader context of
literary creations linked to Esarhaddon’s decision to appoint his younger son
Ashurbanipal as his successor to the throne. The oracle collections read like
an abbreviated version of his Apology, which describes his rise to power and
was written long after his ascension to the throne. Simo Parpola has proposed
this interpretation for the first oracle collection, which deals with the decisive
battle before Esarhaddon’s arrival at Nineveh in the eleventh month of 681 BCE
and his ultimate triumph one month later (681‒XII‒8). Parpola dates the first
oracle collection to late 673 BCE, i.e. the same time the Apology was composed,
while suggesting the earlier date of 679 BCE for the second collection, which
relates to Esarhaddon’s difficulties in consolidating his power in the early years
of his reign. Parpola suggests a date in the last days of 681 or early 680 BCE for
the third collection because it contains oracles concerned with Esarhaddon’s
covenant with Aššur. I disagree with Parpola’s dating of the third oracle collec-
tion since oracle SAA 9 no. 3.2 lists the various enemies that Esarhaddon con-
fronted during his reign, like the Cimmerians and the king of Melid, and be-
cause of the retrospective voice of the Aššur oracle SAA 9 no. 3.3. I suggest
instead that the compilation of the third oracle collection and its deposition
alongside the first and second oracle collections was a consequence of a con-
certed effort to articulate a coherent narrative about these events toward the

110 RINAP 4 no. 1.

111 Leichty 1991 and Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 238‒240.
112 SAA 3 no. 13.
113 SAA 3 no. 44.
348 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

end of Esarhaddon’s reign.114 It is also possible to assume that a Vorlage in-

formed the particular wording of the respective oracle collections, explaining
their slight differences and preventing the author from composing a unified
“literary” version of the three collections.

9.4.3 Rewriting History through the Voices of Ištar and Aššur

The first two of Esarhaddon’s oracle collections, assembled either on three-

column or two-column tablets, refer to historical events linked with Esarhad-
don’s installation as crown prince, the ensuing civil war, his enthronement,
and several episodes from the beginning of his reign. The third oracle collec-
tion, by contrast, summarizes the events tied directly to Esarhaddon’s rise to
power and stands out for its inclusion of a retrospective oracle spoken by Aššur
rather than Ištar.
The assemblage of the oracles on the multi-column tablets is not random,
but roughly follows the course of the events they describe. As a result, the
content of the oracles can be read as a “narrative” of Esarhaddon’s ascension
to the throne authorized by the divine voice. This narrative is also communicat-
ed in Esarhaddon’s royal inscriptions, particularly in his Apology from Ninev-
eh. The “narrative” framework relating to Esarhaddon’s rise to power is, how-
ever, interspersed with oracles pertaining to political and military events from
later in his reign (see especially SAA 9 no. 2.4 and 3.2). It is precisely this
chronologically unsound fusion that complicates our understanding of the
function of the oracle collections and – to my mind – precludes dating them
to the beginning of Esarhaddon’s reign.115 In other words, the single oracles
were originally spoken early in Esarhaddon’s reign, when he was struggling to
consolidate his power in Assyria. These oracles were not, however, assembled
in the three collective tablets stored together in the libraries of Nineveh until
later; their assembly was likely intended to legitimize Esarhaddon’s reign and
probably dates to the time when Esarhaddon planned to install his younger
son Ashurbanipal as heir to the throne.
A survey of the chain of events presented in the “narrative” of these tablets
can help illuminate their purpose. The first oracle collection, identified by Simo
Parpola as the “Oracles of Encouragement to Esarhaddon,” pertains to the peri-

114 I thank Simo Parpola for the conversation we had on the subject on August 29th, 2012.
115 Pace Weippert 1981, 95‒96. Parpola, SAA 9, LXVIII points out that the references to Elam,
Mannea, Urartu and Mugallu of Melid could, in principle, belong to any phase of Esarhaddon’s
twelve-year reign.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 349

od of Esarhaddon’s absence from Assyria, when his father Sennacherib had

sent him away to protect him from assassination, as is expressed by the follow-
ing oracle:

King of Assyria, have no fear! I will deliver up the enemy of the king of Assyria for slaugh-
ter. [I will] keep you safe and [make] you [great in] your Palace of Succession.116

Further support is provided by the oracle delivered to the Queen Mother:

I am the Lady of Arbela.

To the king’s mother:
Because you implored me, saying: You have placed the ones at the (king’s) right and left
side in your lap, but made my own offspring roam in the steppe” ―
Now fear not, my king! The kingdom is yours, yours is the power!117

The tablet seems to end with Esarhaddon’s safe arrival at the succession pal-
ace, as is mentioned in his Apology.118 In the last oracle of the collection, Ištar
tells Esarhaddon that just as he relied on her previous oracles, so too can he
rely on her present and future oracles:

[I am the Lady of Arb]ela.

[O Esarhaddon, who]se bosom [Ištar] of Arbela has filled with favor! Could you not rely
on the previous utterance which I spoke to you? Now you can rely on this later one too.119

Esarhaddon’s inscriptions do not refer explicitly to Ištar’s oracles in favor of his

installation as crown prince, but her support for the future king is mentioned
in his Apology, which refers to her intervention with the expression “through
her sublime command”:

Fear of the great gods, my lords, overwhelmed them, (and when) they saw my mighty
battle array, they became like crazed women. The goddess Ištar, the lady of war and
battle, who loves my priesthood, stood at my side, broke their bows, (and) she split open
their tight battle ranks. In their assembly, they said thus: “This is our king!” Through her
sublime command they began coming over to my side (and) marching behind me. They
were gamboling like lambs (and) begging my sovereignty.120

The second oracle collection deals with Esarhaddon’s efforts to consolidate his
power. Unfortunately, the introduction is missing and the surviving text begins

116 SAA 9 no. 1:2:30′‒35′.

117 SAA 9 no. 1:8:12‒21.
118 Borger, Ash., 41 § 27 Nin. A–F, Ep. 2 i 21‒22 = RINAP 4 no. 1 i 21‒22.
119 SAA 9 no. 1:10: vi 1‒12.
120 RINAP 4 no. 1 i 72‒79.
350 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

with the oracles themselves. In the first oracle, Ištar’s promise to guide Esar-
haddon’s reign according to the ideal model of the past frames the collection
as a whole:

[Have no fe]ar, Esarhaddon!

[Like a] skilled pilot [I will st]eer [the ship] into a good port. [The fu]ture [shall] be like
the past; [I will go around you and protect you.121

The oracles, cast in beautiful metaphors, repeatedly evoke Esarhaddon’s diffi-

culties in consolidating his kingship. They refer to rival claimants to the throne
and to foreign enemies hoping to exploit Assyria’s political instability in order
to destroy Assyria:

I will [reconcile] Assyria with you. I will protect [you] by day and by dawn and [consoli-
date] your crown.
Like a winged bird ov[er its young] I will twitter over you and go in circles around you.
Like a beautiful (lion) cub I will run about in your palace and sniff out your enemies.
I will keep you safe in your palace; I will make you overcome anxiety and trembling. Your
son and grandson shall rule as kings before Ninurta.
I will abolish the frontiers of all the lands and give them to you.
Mankind is deceitful; I am one who says and does. I will sniff out, catch and give you the
‘noisy daughter’.122

Another oracle relates to the military challenges that Esarhaddon faced in his
later years:

I will choose the emissaries of the Elamites and the Mannean. I will seal the writings of
the Urartian. I will cut off the … of Mugallu (of Melitene).
Who (then) is the lone man? Who is the wronged man? Have no fear! Well sheltered is
Esarhaddon, king of Assyria.123

The major task faced by Esarhaddon during his reign was to allay the hostilities
between Assyria and Babylonia, which culminated in several Babylonian re-
volts and in Sennacherib’s final punitive destruction of Babylon and deporta-
tion of its citizens. It therefore comes as no surprise that the support of the
Babylonian gods for Esarhaddon’s rule was also confirmed in the oracles:

The gods of Esangil languish in the ‘steppe’ of mixed evil. Quickly let two burnt offerings
be sent out to their presence, and let them go and announce your well-being!124

121 SAA 9 no. 2.2:15′‒19′.

122 SAA 9 no. 2.3: ii 1‒19′.
123 SAA 9 no. 2.4:12′‒17′.
124 SAA 9 no. 2.3:24′‒27′.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 351

The last oracle of the second collection, again unfortunately fragmentary, re-
fers to Babylon and to Urkittu, Ištar’s hypostasis in Uruk in Southern Babylo-
nia.125 Letters sent to Esarhaddon toward the end of his reign relate to the
restoration of temples and statues in Uruk, which explains Urkittu’s presence
in the oracles.126 Further historical allusions include the references to the Elam-
ites and Manneans, to the sealing of the writing of the Urartian, and to Mugallu
of Melitene, who remained an enemy throughout Esarhaddon’s entire reign
and who is mentioned in the queries to the Sun God.127 A campaign against
Mugallu is attested as late as Esarhaddon’s sixth year in Elulu 675 BCE128 and
probably took place after Esarhaddon’s campaign against the Manneans earlier
in the same year.129
As such, the timeframe covered in the second oracle collection stretches
from the beginning of Esarhaddon’s reign to just after its midpoint, and in-
cludes activities in a geographical expanse stretching between some of the
southernmost and some of the northernmost extremities of Esarhaddon’s em-
pire at that time. Both the first and the second oracle collections contain ora-
cles spoken by Ištar or other gods130 in promissory and commissive speech acts
that express divine commitment to the king in highly particular situations.
The third oracle collection stands apart from the other two in three re-
spects: its overall composition, the fact that the first two oracles are delivered
by Aššur instead of Ištar, and the fact that Aššur’s oracles are spoken in the
past tense. This change in divine authority and in the use of tenses shapes the
overall content of the message and should serve as a caution against reading
the oracle collections as a simple secondary recording of formerly single ora-
cles. On the contrary, the complexity of their composition demonstrates that
much more was involved than mere recording and copying.
The third collection begins with a general introductory statement regarding
Esarhaddon’s final victory over his brothers and the consequent promotion of
prosperity in the land, which is expressed in the well-being of Heaven and
Earth, the Aššur temple, and the king. This presentation of Esarhaddon’s rise
to power is concluded by a blessing and followed by a ritual description of a

125 Ištar-Urkittu assumes a mediating role on behalf of the king before Nabû in the Fictive
Dialogue between Ashurbanipal and Nabû, see Livingstone, SAA 3 no. 13 and most recently
Foster 2005, 829‒30; for the relationship between this fictive dialogue and prophecy, see Pon-
gratz-Leisten 1999, 273 n. 37.
126 SAA 10 nos. 349 and 355.
127 Starr, SAA 4, LVIIf.
128 SAA 4, LVIII.
129 SAA 4, LIXf.
130 For the prophesying deities see Weippert 2002, 13.
352 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

ceremony in the Aššur temple involving the burning (of aromatics) and a refer-
ence to the king’s mother. Simo Parpola tentatively reconstructed one verbal
form as [… i-n]a-áš-ši “he lifts up”, which in the royal rituals generally refers
to lifting up the crown of Aššur and the weapons of Mullissu.131 Mention of the
king’s mother, however, suggests that the context of the coronation ceremony
is unlikely in this case.
After a ruling, two oracles spoken by Aššur follow.132 These oracles state
that the king’s victory was achieved with the support of Aššur, but their form
is distinct from that of other oracles: they lack any address to the king or self-
representation of the deity, features typical of the oracles spoken by Ištar. The
first oracle refers to Esarhaddon’s victorious reign, which secured his control
over the entire universe from East to West. Instead of delivering a situational
prediction, it summarizes the achievements of Esarhaddon. By contrast, the
middle section of the oracle consists of a “victory oracle”133 “predicting” Esar-
haddon’s future conquest of Melid (Melitene), the Cimmerians, and the Ellipi:

[List]en, O Assyrians!
[The king] has vanquished his enemy. [You]r [king] has put his enemy [under] his foot,
[from] sun[se]t [to] sun[ris]e, [from] sun[ris]e to sun[se]t!
I will destroy [Meli]d,
[I will de]stroy […],
[I will …],
I will deliver the Cimmerians into his hands and set the land of Ellipi on fire.
Aššur has given the totality of the four regions to him. From sunrise to sunset there is no
king equal to him; he shines as brilliantly as the sun.
This is the (oracle of) well-being placed before Bel-Tarbaṣi and the gods.134

The joint reference to the Cimmerians and Ellipi locates the text in the year
670 BCE, when a number of queries to the sun god speak of an Assyrian cam-
paign against Ellipi.135 Furthermore, a letter of Marduk-šakin-šumi to Esarhad-
don mentions the triumphal procession of Esarhaddon into the city of Arbail
following his victory over the Cimmerians, which can again be dated firmly to
the year 670 BCE.136

131 See his commentary for SAA 9, 22.

132 I follow the suggestion made by Martti Nissinen 2000b, 252 fn. 62 and understand Aššur
to be the sender of the first oracle too.
133 Van der Toorn 1987.
134 SAA 9 no. 3:2:i 28‒ ii 8.
135 SAA 4 nos. 76‒79. See especially SAA 4 no. 79 which mentions the involvement of the
crown prince Ashurbanipal in the campaign.
136 SAA 10 no. 254 and see the reconstruction by Lanfranchi 1990, chapters 5.2 and 5.3.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 353

Aššur’s second oracle of salvation (šulmu) constitutes the climax of divine

speech in favor of the Assyrian king. It summarizes the political challenges
Esarhaddon faced during the civil war in the past tense and emphatically af-
firms the Assyrian supreme god’s support for Esarhaddon:

Now then, these traitors provoked you, had you banished, and surrounded you; but you
opened your mouth (and cried): “Hear me, O Aššur!”
I heard your cry. I issued forth as a fiery glow from the gate of heaven, to hurl down fire
and have it devour them.
You were standing in their midst, so I removed them from your presence. I drove them
up the mountain and rained (hail)stones and fire of heaven upon them.
I slaughtered your enemies and filled the river with their blood. Let them see (it) and
praise me, (knowing) that I am Aššur, lord of the gods.
This is the well-being (placed) before the Image.
This covenant tablet of Aššur enters the king’s presence on a cushion.
Fragrant oil is sprinkled, sacrifices are made, incense is burnt, and they read it out in the
king’s presence.137

The first “oracle” of Aššur presents a mixture of two different speech acts: the
modus declarativus stating Esarhaddon’s past achievements is combined with
a promissory statement “predicting” future victories that had actually already
been achieved. The second oracle, by contrast, establishes a fictive dialogue
between Aššur and the king that recalls Aššur’s support for Esarhaddon in his
moment of crisis. The form and performative situation of this oracle can be
regarded as a precursor of the Fictive Dialogue between King Ashurbanipal and
Nabû,138 a text category that in my view emerged out of the secondary textuali-
zation of prophecy as represented in the oracle collections.
Both oracles have postscripts that record where they were placed: before
Bēl-Tarbaṣi at the entrance gate of Ešarra in the first case, and in the main
cella in front of the image, probably of Aššur, in the second case.139 According
to the Divine Directory from Aššur (the so-called Götteradressbuch), the god
Bēl-Tarbaṣi is one of the guardians of the gates of the Aššur-Temple Ešarra.140
Consequently, the tablet placed before Bēl-Tarbaṣi – if visible – would have
guaranteed the dissemination of the divine word at least among those allowed
to enter the temple district; this is much less true for the second oracle, which

137 SAA 9 no. 3.3:ii 10‒27.

138 SAA 3 no. 13.
139 These postscripts are nominal sentences annû šulmu ša ina pān ṣalme “This is the well-
being (oracle) (placed) before the Image,” which prompted Weippert to assume that the oracle
was “spoken” in front of the image. I prefer the approach suggested by Simo Parpola.
140 Menzel 1981 vol. 2, T 149:45.
354 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

was placed in the relatively inaccessible cella. The placement of the tablets in
front of the divine statue, a custom well-known for treaty tablets in Hittite and
Assyrian contexts,141 points to the importance ascribed to Aššur’s oracles and
invests them with enduring legal meaning.
In the second oracle, the postscript records ritual instructions similar to
those associated with ritual readings of the loyalty oath before the king. This
passage has been understood as a reference to the first Aššur oracle,142 and
induced Simo Parpola to name the third oracle collection as a whole “The Cov-
enant of Aššur.” Scholarship dealing with the study of the Neo-Assyrian oracles
has followed this interpretation and the first two oracles have thus been read
in the context of Esarhaddon’s ascension to the throne.143 In what kind of ritual
context, however, would Aššur’s oracle have been set, and must it be related
to Esarhaddon’s ascension? As stated above, Esarhaddon’s ascension to the
throne was framed by two steps: (1) the ceremonial swearing of loyalty oaths
while Sennacherib was still alive, and (2) Esarhaddon’s actual enthronement
following his expulsion of rival claimants to the throne, probably to Urartu or
Šubria.144
The only two Assyrian ritual texts dealing with the enthronement of the
king, namely the Middle Assyrian coronation ritual 145 and the Coronation Hymn
to Ashurbanipal,146 indicate that the coronation of kings took place in the Aššur
temple. Neither text mentions the performance of a loyalty oath. Also problem-
atic is the fact that the texts of loyalty oaths performed by the officials and
vassals of the Assyrian empire do not record any ritual prescriptions that shed
light on the procedure of oath-swearing. The oracle collection SAA 9.3 is, in-
deed, the only Assyrian text that mentions the ritual reading of an oath (ṭuppi
adê) before the king in the Aššur temple.
SAA 9.3 is also the only Assyrian text to mention a covenant meal, which
follows the ritual reading of the oath and is separated from the preceding Aššur
oracles by a double ruling. This scribal demarcation indicates both that the
oracles that follow it were spoken by Ištar and that the covenant meal itself was
not considered part of the oath-reading ceremony. Further, the oath-reading

141 See now the evidence of Tell Taynat, which also includes an exorcistic tablet. In the Old
Babylonian period letter prayers might have been subject to deposition of this kind.
142 Weippert 2002, 17 considers the entirety of the first part to represent three oracles spoken
by Aššur, which are then separated from Ištar’s oracle by a double ruling.
143 Otto 1998, 80‒84 and 1999; Nissinen 2000. 251 ff.
144 Leichty 1991.
145 Müller 1957.
146 SAA 3 no. 11.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 355

ceremony before the king in the Aššur temple should be distinguished from
the oath-swearing that accompanied the installation of a new crown prince.
This oath was probably sworn in the Nabû temple147 in the presence of Marduk
and Nabû, as mentioned in a letter sent to king Esarhaddon regarding Ashur-
banipal’s appointment as crown prince:

The scribes of the cities of Nin[eveh], Kilizi and Arbela (could) ent[er] the treaty; they
have (already) come. (However), those of Aššur [have] not (yet) come. The king, my lord,
[knows] that they are cler[gymen]148. If it pleases the king my lord, let the former, who
have (already) come, enter the treaty; the citizens of Nineveh and Calaḫ would be free
soon (and) could enter (the treaty/loyalty oath) under (the statues of) the gods Bēl and
Nabû on the 8th day.149

Although the above passage refers to Ashurbanipal’s installation as crown

prince, it is probably safe to assume that similar procedures were in place
when Sennacherib appointed Esarhaddon as his crown prince. Ashurbanipal’s
appointment as crown prince coincided with the Babylonian akītu festival,150
which could also account for the oath-swearing in the presence of the gods
Marduk and Nabû.
If we assume that the ṭuppi adê of SAA 9.3 refers to the swearing of loyalty
oaths rather than to oracles spoken by Aššur, then to my knowledge this con-
stitutes the only evidence for the swearing of loyalty oaths on the occasion of
the king’s coronation in the Aššur temple. On the other hand, numerous sour-
ces attest to oath-swearing on the occasion of the appointment of the crown
prince. There is another possible interpretation: similar to earlier practices
among the Hittites, previously sworn loyalty oaths could have been read again
at certain intervals in the presence not only of the magnates and vassals but
also of the Assyrian king himself. If so, the loyalty oath could have been sworn
both upon Esarhaddon’s ascension to the throne and at a later point in his
reign.
The subsequent oracle spoken by Ištar elevates the swearing of the loyalty
oath to the divine level, as the treaty parties are represented by the gods. Ac-
cordingly, the oracle presents a literary reading of political events during the
swearing of the loyalty oath:

147 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 99.

148 Literally “temple-enterers” ([ērib-bīti]).
149 SAA 10 no. 6:6 ff.
150 For the dating of this letter to 7 Nisannu 672 BCE, see the comments by Simo Parpola to
LAS 1.
356 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

Come, gods, my fathers and brothers, [enter] the cove[nant ….]

[She placed] a slice … on the [ter]race and gave them water from a cooler to drink. She
filled a flagon of one seah with water from the cooler and gave it to them with the words:
“in your hearts you say, ‘Ištar is slight,’ and you will go to your cities and districts, eat
(your) bread and forget this covenant.
“(But when) you drink from this water, you will remember me and keep this covenant
which I have made on behalf of Esarhaddon.”151

Although Aššur’s oracles may originally have had a ritual setting that included
a reading to the king, their secondary textualization in the collective tablets
did not.
The other important question is how to reconcile the references to political
and military undertakings from much later in Esarhaddon’s reign with the ora-
cles spoken on the occasion of his appointment to the office of crown prince.
This is the heart of the problem, as not one of the “historical oracles” in the
third oracle collection can be read as a situational oracle simply because all of
these historical allusions appear as listings of various historical episodes rather
than as detailed accounts of oracular deliveries. If we take the formal presenta-
tion of the historical references seriously, the second oracle collection would
only have been written in the second half of Esarhaddon’s reign, at some point
after 675 BCE, while the third would have been written toward the end of Esar-
haddon’s reign, around 670 BCE – a date that is closer in time to Ashurbani-
pal’s coronation than to his installation as crown prince, which had already
taken place in 672 BCE. Of interest in this respect is the fact that the year 670
BCE is notorious for Esarhaddon’s slaughter of numerous magnates and offi-
cials, who had engaged in a conspiracy against the king. This event is recorded
in the Babylonian Chronicle152 and anticipated in a letter of one of Esarhaddon’s
spies,153 as well as in queries to the Sun God inquiring about the loyalty of
official and magnates154 and ‘appointment queries’155 reflecting a situation of
political tension and denunciation.
Could it be that Esarhaddon intended to create a visionary framework for
Ashurbanipal’s coronation by using the retrodictive oracles spoken by Aššur
in the third oracle collection? The fact that these oracles evoke the state proce-
dure of the loyalty oath and the covenant meal to protect Ashurbanipal from

151 SAA 9 3:4: ii 35‒iii 12.

152 Grayson 1975, 86, Chronicle I, col. iv 29; Parpola, LAS II, 238 suggests the month of Nisan-
nu 670 BCE; see also Frahm 2010, 110 fn. 53.
153 Frahm 2010, YBC 11382.
154 SAA 4 nos. 139‒148.
155 SAA 4 nos. 149‒182.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 357

harm by means of some kind of ‘performative magic’156 certainly seems to aim

at influencing the course of events while simultaneously emphasizing contem-
poraneous political ethical conventions.
Read from this perspective, the oracle collections as a text category share
features with the so-called literary predictive texts,157 such as the Marduk
Prophecy, Šulgi Prophecy, Dynastic Chronicle, and Uruk Prophecy.158 These liter-
ary predictive texts consist of a number of “‘predictions’ of past events,” so-
called vaticinia ex eventu that were “carefully selected for their illustrative
value and assembled into a dramatic progression of cycles of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
heralding the establishment of a final era of bliss.”159 The purpose of these
predictions is to vindicate this final era and to legitimize the present, a situa-
tion that well describes the historical context and general message of the Neo-
Assyrian oracle collections. These literary predictive texts have no prophetic or
cultic setting160 but emerged from the context of historiographic writing. The
Neo-Assyrian oracle collections differ from the literary predictive texts insofar
as they are explicit about historical events and do not cover the vast temporal
and spatial scope typical of the literary predictive texts. Nonetheless, because
of their literary affinities to divine letters, literary predictive texts, and the fic-
tive dialogue, the secondary textualization of the Neo-Assyrian oracles belongs
to the broader historiographic productivity of the Sargonid period. Instead of
viewing the oracles as a simple “collection,” their compositional outline sug-
gests a reading that transcends the historical circumstances that elicited their
first formulation.161 The exemplary character of the oracles also anticipates the
future appointment of Esarhaddon’s younger son Ashurbanipal. Rather than
legitimizing Esarhaddon’s reign, the oracle collections trace his ascension to
the throne and thus produce a model of irregular succession that can be repeat-
ed again in the future. Ashurbanipal’s royal authority and his claim to power
are thus anchored in the divine sanction of Esarhaddon’s rise to power, and a
divinely approved precedent is established for deviation from the tradition of
primogeniture.
Simo Parpola suggests relating the first oracle collection to the historio-
graphic context of Esarhaddon’s Apology in his Nineveh inscription from 673
BCE and assumes that the second collection concerned with the stabilization

156 Austin 1975; Searle 1975; Tambiah 1968; and Michalowski 1981 and Veldhuis 1999.
157 de Jong Ellis 1989.
158 Grayson 1980, 183‒184.
159 Beaulieu 1993, 41.
160 Ellis 1989, 147.
161 Van der Toorn 2000, 77.
358 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

of Esarhaddon’s rule was written in the year 679 BCE, i.e. the same date as the
Aššur A inscription; Parpola regards the third collection as the earliest one,
dating it to the last days of 681 or 680 BCE.162 While Parpola’s reconstruction
may well be accurate, the question remains as to whether a gap of six years
should be postulated between the writing of the first and the writing of the
third collection, as the tablets were written by the same hand.
Like divine letters, these oracle collections were designed to extend divine
approval to certain historical events. Divine letters repeat a narrative about the
decisive stages of one of the king’s military campaigns and intersperse the
erstwhile royal report with legitimizing formulae, wherein the deeds of the king
are presented as taking place at the command of the god and buttressed with
sanctifying formulae.163 In the oracle collections, divine speech repeats a nar-
rative concerning certain key moments in Esarhaddon’s rise to power and im-
poses a particular interpretation of them that then determines how these
events will be understood by posterity. This retrospective perspective is further
supported by the fact that the oracles always refer to Esarhaddon as “king”
(šarru) and never as “crown prince,” a fact that has not hitherto been taken
into consideration. The ṭuppu format of the tablets was supposed to emphasize
the judicial force of the content, as this same format was used for treaties and
other legal documents and conveyed binding authority.164 As is the case in
Esarhaddon’s Apology, the argument of the oracle collections is that Esarhad-
don’s accession was well grounded in legal state procedure.165 As such, the
oracle collections could serve as an exemplary precedent for Ashurbanipal and
help suppress another potential crisis. Through the oracle collections, the par-
ticular moment in Assyrian history when Esarhaddon was installed as crown
prince (mār šarri ša bīt rēdûti) despite being a younger son was presented as
conforming to tradition. This effect was brought about by reliance on the key
strategy of Mesopotamian culture, namely divine speech, which offered a
range of culturally established associations that condensed and established
meaning.166 With their binding and authoritative force,167 the oracle collections
in their written form were meant to transform the perception of the events

162 Parpola, SAA 9, LXVIII f.

163 Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 266‒275, esp. 272.
164 In this context we can refer to the formula “According to the command of Anu and Antu,
may [this endeavor] be successful!” This wish expresses the hope of the scribe that his work
will be pleasing to the gods and is used in Seleucid Uruk and Babylon in legal contexts and
for scientific texts, see Pearce 2004, 628.
165 Tadmor 1983, 39.
166 Pongratz-Leisten 2012.
167 On the power of the divine word see Noegel 2004.
 Esarhaddon’s Reliance on Ištar’s Voice 359

surrounding Esarhaddon’s rise to power and thus functioned as a model case

for the future selection of Ashurbanipal as crown prince.
By means of the divine voice, the oracle collections concerned with legiti-
mizing irregular succession gain the same divinely determined character as the
Tablet of Destinies: they impose the concept of cosmic order articulated by the
gods while transcending a particular historical event and using it to establish
a new paradigm of succession. The oracle collections can be seen as a first
step in the literary development towards prophetic historiography.168 As text
categories, both the oracle collection and the aforementioned fictive dialogue
that grew out of the textualization of prophecy were not part of the common
literary repertoire. Although the oracle collection and the fictive dialogue were
linked intertextually to other existing text categories, they emerged in histori-
cal situations of crisis169 and were exceptional in their form, content, and func-
tion. The fictive dialogue and the oracle collection both drew on the familiar
structures and content of oracles in order to transpose and actualize the textual
repertoire in a new literary framework, creating a message that does not ad-
dress the king in a specific historical situation but is directed instead at posteri-
ty. By means of this new compositional framework, such texts compel the audi-
ence to engage in a dynamic and new reception of customary strategies of
discourse.
What remains to be determined is whether the oracle collections are ad-
dressed to a particular audience and if so, who that audience might have been.
Although the oracle collections reflect a discourse that existed prior to Esar-
haddon’s decision to appoint Ashurbanipal as his successor to the throne, it
remains doubtful whether, in the political monarchical structure of the Assyri-
an empire, one should envisage a scenario of public reading designed to per-
suade the elites to support the future crown prince. Esarhaddon’s report on his
campaign in Šubria to eliminate rival claimants to the throne describes the
monarch’s use of overt physical force in cases of non-compliance with his
wishes. Furthermore, the institutional setting of the loyalty oath was designed
to guarantee obedience to the crown. In the case of the oracle collections,
therefore, the gods and future rulers appear to be a much likelier audience
than any contemporaries, as only they are in a position to evaluate Esarhad-
don’s conformity with tradition; the divine voice recorded in the oracles cer-
tainly intends to provide cogent evidence that Esarhaddon did conform to the
cosmic plan. Esarhaddon’s oracle collections evoke Jorge Borges’ notion of the
writing of the god as instantaneous absolute plenitude that leaves diachronic

168 Petersen 2000.

169 Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 284.
360 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

writing behind in merging the past, present, and the future into the cosmic
plan.170 The listing of prospective campaigns in Aššur’s oracles thus loses any
historical value in its own right. Instead, these historical references serve the
general purpose of expressing Aššur’s promise to defend the king against any
enemy who might threaten Assyria in the future. The Aššur oracles, while em-
ploying the retrospective perspective, establish Esarhaddon’s individual fate
as a historic model and thus turn his reign – itself based on irregular succes-
sion – into a synecdoche for Assyrian rulership per se that is in compliance
with the divine design.

9.5 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition

9.5.1 Ashurbanipal’s Personal Take on the Extispicy Omen Series
iškar bārûti

The other instance of royal appropriation of an established scholarly text cat-

egory, in this case the extispicy series iškar bārûti, dates to the reign of Ashur-
banipal, who used this omen series to establish his own deeds as a paradigm
within a symbolic system that was ultimately subject to divine authority.171
As indicated by a tablet from his library that lists only historical omens,172
Ashurbanipal was well informed about the existence of historical omens con-
cerning the kings of Akkad and Ur III, and he revived the historical omen tradi-
tion in order to include himself among the ‘model kings.’

Excerpt Tablet:
 1 If the gall-bladder completely surrounds the liver, it is the omen of Sargon who by
this omen
 2 marched on the land of Elam, defeated the Elamites,
 3 imposed on them … (and) cut off their food supplies?
 4 If the gall-bladder completely surrounds the liver and [its? to]p? falls upon it; the
gall bladder hangs down
 5 It is the omen of Sargon, who marched on the land of Amurru,
 6 defeated the land of Amurru, and conquered the entire world
 7 If the right side of the liver is four times as thick as its left side?, and the caudate
lobe lies on top of it,
 8 it is the omen of Sargon who by this omen … dominion over Babylon.
 9 He removed soil from the … gate and … named it Babylon.

170 Borges 1999, 250‒254 “The Writing of the God.”

171 Part of Chapter 9.5 has been published in Pongratz-Leisten 2014c.
172 Starr 1986.
 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 361

10 [In front of?] Akkad he built (another) city, and named it [Babylon].
11 […] he settled [therein?].173

Esarhaddon made use of prophecy to rewrite history in the collective oracle

tablets; Ashurbanipal preferred to make use of the textual vehicle of scholarly
extispicy, the omen series. The distinction between practice and textual pro-
duction in the domains of prophecy and divination is crucial to my argument.
In divination, individual omen reports reflect practice based on observation,
but the omen compendia are purely textual scholastic products (which can
include omina based on observation).174 The rulers of the ancient Near East
made extensive use of divination for ad-hoc decision-making in daily affairs.
By contrast, appropriation of the omen series as a system of thought that com-
municates the image of the model king and preserves the reign of individual
kings as a historical paradigm is very rare in Mesopotamian history.175 It is this
latter aspect that I investigate here in more depth.176

173 Starr 1986, 635.

174 This argument has long been made for the astrological omen compendia, see Rochberg
2004 and 2010; recently Richardson 2010 and Winitzer 2011 made the case for extispicy omen
compendia.
175 Note that no omen reports or omen compendia survive in Sumerian or Akkadian language
before the beginning of the second millennium BCE (Michalowski 2006 and Richardson 2010),
and that the distribution of omen texts and the exclusively Akkadian technical terminology of
the craft contrast with the elaborate passage from Šulgi’s Hymn B (ll. 131‒149) in which the
king boasts of surpassing his diviners in the relevant knowledge. Not only does Šulgi claim to
have excelled in decoding the signs written in the liver by listing a host of situations for which
royal performance required the taking of oracles, he even claims authorship of lists of omens,
thus throwing the significance of omen compendia into high relief.
Šulgi B: 131‒149
“I am a ritually pure diviner, (máš-šu-gí-gíd dadag-ga-me-en)
I am Nintu of the written lists of omens! (gìri-gen-na inim uzu-ga-ka dnin-tud-bi gá-me-en)
For the proper performance of the lustrations of the office of the high priest,
For singing the praises of the high priestess and (their) selection for (residence in) the
gipar,
For the choosing of the Lumah and Nindingir priests by pure extispicy
For (decision to) attack the south or strike the north,
For opening the storage of (battle) standards,
For the washing of the lances in the “water of battle,”
And for making wise decisions about rebel lands,
The (ominous) words of the gods are most precious, indeed!
After taking a propitious omen from a white lamb ‒ an ominous animal ‒
At the place of questioning water and flour are libated;
I make ready the sheep with ritual words
And my diviner watches in amazement like a barbarian.
362 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

In northern Mesopotamia, examination of the entrails of sacrificial animals

for royal purposes dates back to the Early Dynastic period, as is revealed by
profession lists. Royal inscriptions of king Ur-Nanshe of Lagash mention the
use of extispicy, as indicated by the wording “to choose by means of extispicy”,
Sumerian maš pà, for the installment of a certain official as spouse of the god-
dess Inanna.177 Another royal inscription by the same king contains an incanta-
tion to the reed for ritual purposes. In this incantation the god Enki pronounces
a favorable verdict (éš.bar) to ensure its efficacy in a dedication ritual. This
favorable divine verdict probably occurred on the basis of extispicy as well,
as illuminated by later texts in which éš.bar equals Akkadian purussû “divine
verdict” and is spoken generally by the sun god as decoded from the signs in
the liver.178 Contemproary with the southern evidence, Pre-Sargonic adminis-

The ready sheep is placed in my hand, and I never confuse a favorable sign with an unfa-
vorable one.
…
In the inside of a single sheep I, the king,
Can find the (divine) message for the whole universe.”
In this text passage Šulgi addresses the two domains of divination from the outset: practice
and scholarship. He first refers to himself as a ‘ritually pure diviner’, i.e. as somebody involved
in the omen practice and then as Nintu, creating and compiling the omen compendia. Šulgi
then outlines the contexts that require divination. Šulgi’s list of situations related to the perfor-
mance of divination does not only reveal the king to be the primary agent of divination, but
further demonstrates that he has fully understood the importance of conveying the notion that
he acted in compliance with the cosmic order as designed by the gods. Šulgi’s insinuation that
he had drawn up a systematic treatise of omens further demonstrates that he was aware of the
model function of such omen compendia. By choosing a biological metaphor and comparing
himself to the birth goddess Nintu in the process of composition, Šulgi does not emphasize
his personal initiative but depicts royal action and performance as if they are inherent to the
cosmic design.
It is with Šulgi that we see for the first time the king usurping the weltanschauung originally
advanced by the scholars. While the latter strove to position kingship within the larger cosmo-
logical framework, Šulgi, by appropriating the authorship of the omen compendia, steps out-
side of the system that inscribes royal performance in the authoritative past. Instead of fulfill-
ing the role of the king who strives to match the ideal king and to meet the expectations linked
with the office of kingship, Šulgi transforms himself into the epitome of the ideal king. Such
royal appropriation of the entire system of thought was unprecedented and represents an inter-
esting facet in the dynamics of royal-scholarly interaction, as it must eventually have been
considered a threat to the status and role of the scholarly elites.
176 In contrast to Pongratz-Leisten 1999, which was more concerned with the operational side
of decision-making on the one hand and with ideological self-representation in controlling
this knowledge on the other; see also recently Radner 2011.
177 Frayne, Pre-Sargonic Period, RIME 1, Ur-Nanshe E1.9.1.17 iii 3‒6.
178 RIME 1, Ur-Nanshe E1.9.1.32 iii 1‒3.
 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 363

trative documents from Ebla179 in Northern Syria listing numbers of sheep

whose innards were used for the purpose of extispicy not only show that this
method of divination was practiced on a large scale on behalf of the court, but
also point to the king’s sponsorship and patronage of the craft.180 Certain year
names from the Ur III and Old Babylonian period attest to the practice of choos-
ing high officials and priests and priestesses by means of extispicy.181 The close
relationship between the king and the diviners as royal advisors in cultic, po-
litical, diplomatic, and administrative affairs is illustrated by letters from the
Old Babylonian period onward. This relationship is also apparent in the seals
of the diviners, who position themselves in direct relation to the king, as illus-
trated by the seals of diviners to Šulgi,182 Daduša and Ibal-pi-El II of Ešnun-
na,183 and of Asqudum, the diviner to King Zimrilim of Mari: “Zimrilim, ap-
pointed by the god Dagan; Asqudum, the diviner.”184 The fact that Šulgi’s cup-
bearer and chief-steward calls himself ‘overseer of the extispicy priests’ (ugula
maš-šu-gí-gíd-dè-ne)185 highlights the close connection between the court and
a professional set of expert diviners. Several hundred years passed before the
divinatory practice itself was transmitted in writing. In my view, the very emer-
gence of textual production in the context of divination constitutes a conun-
drum for the modern scholar.
By the early second millennium BCE three major divination genres
emerged in quick succession. First, divinatory liver models from the so-called
šakkanakku period appear in early second millennium BCE Mari; these models
overlap partially with the end of the Ur III period and survived its collapse
by several decades.186 The inscriptions on these liver models come in various
formulations, suggesting that the diviners were still experimenting with the
written framework for their technique. Three formulas occur: (a) ‘omen (amūt)
+ royal name,’ with the omen referring to the constellation of signs as depicted
in the liver model; (b) ‘when (inūmi) + event’; and (c) ‘if (šumma) + event’. Over
time, the second formula disappeared, the third became the standard form for
recording omens, and the first remained in use for the historical omens inter-

179 Archi 2009.

180 For divination at Ebla see also Biga 1999 and Coser 2000.
181 See the lists of year names in RIME 3/2 and RIME 4; pace Michalowski 2011, 208 who
assumes that “extispicy became a dominant form of divination only during the Old Babylonian
period.”
182 RIME 3/2, E3/2.1.2.2052.
183 RIME 4, E4.5.19.2015 and RIME 4, E4.5.20.2010.
184 Charpin 2011.
185 RIME 3/2, E3/2.1.2.2052: v 9′.
186 On liver models see the monograph of Meyer 1987; and more recently Maul 2003, 71‒79.
364 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

spersed in omen series.187 In formulas (a) and (b) the verbal tense is the preter-
ite, while the present tense is reserved for formula (c). Two examples of histori-
cal omens may suffice by way of illustration:

Rutten, RA 33, no. 3

a-mu-ut Na-ra-am-dSîn Omen of Narām-Sîn
sá A-pí-sá-al who conquered Apišal.
il-qá-é

Rutten, RA 33, no. 6

a-mu-ut Omen
ṣú-hu-ra-im of diminishment
si188 I-bí-dSîn of Ibbi-Sîn
ba-taq(?) ma-ti-šu i-ba-al-ki-li-šu against whom a fraction of his country made a revolt.

The important feature of these liver models for the reader is that they presup-
pose a combination of image and text, i.e. the omen is represented by the phys-
ical form of the liver, which is different in all 32 liver models kept at the Louvre.
The written text, by contrast, contains the apodosis. Regarding the use of dif-
ferent verbal tenses, namely preterite and present, it is intuitive to assume that
texts using preterite verbal forms had a distinct purpose, which has generally
been identified as didactic. Their function can, however, equally be read as
paradigmatic, like that of the entries in the omen compendia. Support for this
suggestion comes from Hazor, where several liver models have also been
found.189 Liver model Hazor 17190 betrays some similarity to the omen collec-
tion of the bārûtu series. The editors of this liver model state:

What is striking about this model with its accompanying text is its similarity not only to
the liver model tradition but, more importantly, to the Old Babylonian omen collections
from Mesopotamia proper. This is made clear by a review of some of the points already
discussed, including: 1) the standard interpretation of the double manzāzum/naplastum;
2) the explanation of the cleft as a forecast of rebellion on the basis of the set of associa-
tions KAK-shape/KAK-sign/kakku (weapon) à bartum (rebellion); 3) the relation of predic-

187 Glassner 2000.

188 = ší genitive relative pronoun.
189 Landsberger and Tadmor 1964 and Horowitz, Oshima, and Winitzer 2010.
190 The text on the liver model runs as follows:
a) …
b) In the afternoon, it will become dark, the enemy I will kill.
c) In the evening, it will become dark, the enemy I will kill.
d) Like the start (opening) of a rebellion.
e) A man will reach the realm of wisdom.
f) A god received the prayer of a man.
 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 365

tions of darkness/obscurity (eṭû ‘dark’) with the padānum; and 4) an example of the ‘tem-
poral interpretive theme’. Moreover, in its wording and subject matter, the text follows
standard conventions for the Mesopotamian divination tradition (bârûtu). Thus, Hazor 17
belongs to the mainstream of the extispicy divination tradition of Mesopotamia.191

The other two genres originated somewhat later in the Old Babylonian period,
i.e. in the first half of the second millennium BCE. These genres are the omen
reports containing either fortunate or unfortunate omens for a particular in-
quiry, and the omen compendia, most important of which is the extispicy series
(iškar bārûti). Other series were added either during the Old Babylonian period
or later, among them the astrological series Enūma Anu Enlil, the series Šumma
izbu (concerned with malformed births),192 Šumma ālu (If a city (is set on
high)),193 and the physiognomic series (Alamdimmû), to mention only the most
prominent ones.
In the first millennium BCE, Mesopotamian scholarship produced com-
mentaries of all kinds, such as excerpt series, factual commentaries (mukallim-
tu), linguistic commentaries (ṣâtu), and explanatory series.194 Another extispi-
cy series also emerged, known as the tamītu oracles and addressed to the sun
god Šamaš and the weather god Adad. Although they deal primarily with the
affairs of private persons, these tamītu oracles also include a number of histori-
cal omens referring to the Old Babylonian kings Hammurabi and Samsuditana;
these omens have no practical setting and are like the omen series of a purely
textual nature. They are attested only in copies from first millennium BCE Nim-
rud and Nineveh and have recently been edited by W. G. Lambert.195
As soon as divination was committed to writing, it formed a major part of
scholarly libraries, royal libraries, and temple libraries. The divination tablets
in Ashurbanipal’s library amount to more than a quarter of the surviving texts,
bespeaking the importance of such divination texts in the ancient weltanschau-
ung.196 Before discussing Ashurbanipal’s use of the historical omen tradition,
I will comment on the historical omens and their intertextual relationship with
other chronographic literature.

191 Horowitz, Oshima, and Winitzer 2010, 143.

192 Leichty 1970.
193 Freedman 1998.
194 Such as Šumma Sîn ina tāmartīšu, see N. Veldhuis, 2010b, 81 ff.
195 Lambert 2007.
196 Koch 2011, 447.
366 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

9.5.2 The Liver Models in the Broader Context of the Historical Omens

Historical omens alluding to historical persons are as old as the first recorded
omen reports on liver models from Mari dating to the 19th century BCE.197 The
value of such omens for historical reconstruction was intensely debated in As-
syriological scholarship198 until Jerrold Cooper demonstrated their unsuitabili-
ty as historical sources for reconstructing third millennium history in 1980.199
Liver models have been deemed of didactic purpose in the context of the pro-
fessional training of the diviners. The fact that they include historical omens
referring to the kings of Akkade and to the kings of the Ur III dynasty, to Gušur,
first king of Kīš, and Kubaba, founder of the Third Dynasty of Kīš,200 as well
as to the legendary kings Gilgameš and Etana, however, links them with the
textual production of omen compendia rather than to that of omen reports and
lends them a paradigmatic character. Rather than referring to actual historical
events, they establish these kings and their deeds as models for kingship.
The number of historical omens in the first millennium omen compendia
is minimal when compared to the thousands of omens that are collected in the
various omen series. Furthermore, until the first millennium historical omens
are always interspersed among other apodoses and never form a coherent
group of their own. The sparse evidence of the historical omens led Piotr Mi-
chalowski to consider them as “vignettes of the past”,” as “anecdotes lost in a
vast ominous landscape.”201 He writes:

Of the thousands of such omens known to us today, slightly over 60 are “historical,” and
these acquire a special status only when they are decontextualized and seriated into mod-
ern collections of historiographic data. Omens were an extremely important part of cul-
ture, but they were hardly privileged repositories of historical knowledge.202

Nonetheless Michalowski admits to the importance of Finkelstein’s essay in

that

It was the first major attempt to analyze historiography “from the native point of view,”
rather than as a reflex of modern intuitive concepts. Finkelstein was searching for a sense

197 Rutten 1936.

198 Finkelstein 1963, 463 and Grayson 1960 argue that these entries have historical value.
Disagreement has been expressed by Güterbock 1934, 47 ff. and Reiner 1974.
199 Cooper 1980, 100.
200 Jean-Jacques Glassner discussed these omens in his paper “The Diviner as Historian”
delivered at our workshop Ancient and Modern Perspectives on Historiography in the Ancient
Near East, held at ISAW, April 12th, 2013.
201 Michalowski 1999, 76.
202 Ibid.
 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 367

of the past; he was not interested in whether something actually happened, in the collo-
quial sense, but rather in the way in which earlier events, real or imaginary, were por-
trayed. In this way he almost succeeded in separating himself from earlier studies on
history writing, which always seemed to return to the point of origin. Searching for the
original kernel of truth that simply “must” lie hidden behind the textual distoritions of
history.203

Although in the end Finkelstein was also searching for a genre that had a priv-
iled connection with historical reality, his qualification of the omen texts ‒ and
here we should include all the omens referring to royal action ‒ as lying at the
root of Mesopotamian historiography has been so far unique and is invaluable
for our modern understanding of how the ancients view their past.
More than fifty percent of the omen entries, however, contain apodoses
that are primarily concerned with political and military matters. These include
the king’s involvement with court intrigues, treason, usurpation, border garri-
sons, the success of the army in the field, the loyalty of the people of the land,
of officials, of vassal kings, and of members of the royal family.204 Omen en-
tries referring to royal action constitute a rich repertoire of the possible constel-
lations of power and interactions in which a king might find himself involved,
and can therefore be read as paradigmatic for royal action.205
The paradigmatic function is further supported by the fact that among the
historical omens there are several omens formulated in the past tense rather
than the durative, which points to the future:

If there is a ‘well-being’ groove [on the sheep’s liver] that is like the squatting of a young
bull, it is the omen of Gilgameš, who had no rival.

If the gall bladder is shaped like a lizard, it is the mark of Sargon.

If the heart is like a testicle, it is the omen of Rīmuš, whom his servants killed with their
cylinder seals.

If the fetus is like a lion, it is an omen of Narām-Sîn, who subudued the world.

If the fetus is compact, it is an omen of Ibbi-Sîn: disaster.206

Numerous apodoses of this kind do not use third person verbal forms to refer
to the king, but are expressed in the first or second person, thereby invoking
the formulation of the omen reports and the notion of divinatory practice:

203 Michalowski 1999 76‒77.

204 Richardson 2010.
205 Similarly Larsen 1987, 212‒213 who described them as prescribing legitimate behavior in
present and future circumstances.
206 Quoted after Michalowski 1999, 76.
368 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

YOS 10 33 iii 37‒45

ll. 37‒39: You will pen[etra]te the [distri]cts of the cities of your enemy and bring forth
booty (from them).
ll. 40‒42: You will 〈pe〉netrate from the epicenter of [yo]ur enemy(’s land) and bring
forth booty.
ll. 43‒45: [You w]ill p[ene]trate in(to) the rear of enemy’s land and [bri]ng forth
boot[y].207

Even though these omen entries may have been copied from earlier oracle re-
ports, references to kingship in the liver models and the omen compendia serve
a purpose entirely different from that of observational practice, namely to in-
scribe royal performance in the “reciprocal relation that unites the cosmos,
nature, and culture.”208 As Jean-Jacques Glassner states regarding the con-
struction of the omen compendia, “the seer seeks more and more to define, by
means of a meticulous description of occurrences, the modalities according to
which are established the reciprocal relations that unite the two worlds of soci-
ety and nature, longing for a plan in which the very subject matter of history
is diluted.”209
The fact that the ancient scholars derived their material for historical apod-
oses not only from historical kings, but also from literary sources, such as the
Gilgameš Epic or the Etana Myth, reiterates the paradigmatic nature of these
historical omens, as the mythology revolving around these legendary kings
provided the model for royal behavior.210 Such an understanding of the ancient
sources is reinforced by the intertextual relationship between these omens and
two chronicles. In the Chronicle of Early Kings, which covers kings from Sargon
of Akkad (c. 2334‒2279 BCE) through to Agum III (c. 1450 BCE), the events
recorded regarding the kings Sargon and Narām-Sîn of Akkad are the same as
those recorded in the omen series.211 This is also true for the Weidner Chronicle,
which starts with kings from the Early Dynastic period and continues through
to the reign of Šulgi (2094‒2047 BCE), and which is primarily concerned with
royal treatment of Marduk’s temple in Babylon and consequent divine reward
and divine punishment.212 Both chronicles were composed during the first mil-
lennium BCE and both chronicles can be considered pseudo-chronicles, as they
do not provide any valuable information regarding the history of events. In-

207 Quoted after Winitzer 2011, 81.

208 Glassner 2000, 203.
209 Glassner 2003, 203.
210 Starr 1986, 631.
211 Grayson 1975, 182 ff.
212 Grayson 1975, 47.
 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 369

stead, their concern lies with the heroic deeds of kings and with correct royal
treatment of the cult; both chronicles occasionally record rather bizarre events,
which is also true for various historical omens.213
The paradigmatic value of the early kings of Akkad in the omen compendia
and the chronicles extends to the historical legends, and all three text catego-
ries coalesce around the paradigmatic royal figures who had constructed the
‘first empire’214 in history. An important point of difference, however, is that in
the omen series Sargon and Narām-Sîn mostly appear as fortunate rulers, while
legendary tradition divided between the two, turning Sargon into the paradig-
matic fortunate ruler and using Narām-Sîn as both a positive and a negative
model.215 Overall, intertextual links between omen compendia, pseudo-chroni-
cles, and literature support the idea of an entirely text- rather than observation-
based composition process for the omen compendia. This mingling of the leg-
endary and historic past demonstrates that scholars were not concerned with
the distinction between myth and history.
Omen compendia – with their numerous references to anonymous kings
and princes and the occasional historical omen – as well as pseudo-chronicles
and historical legends amount to a corpus of culturally authoritative texts that
anchor the royal office and royal action in the divinely ordained cosmic order,
complemented by a critical voice regarding royal failures related to the cult.
Given that the ancient weltanschauung was based on the reciprocal relation-
ship between cosmos, nature, and culture and that liver models and omen
compendia were paradigmatic in character, it is not surprising that under par-
ticular historical circumstances certain kings expressed an interest in appropri-
ating the learned textual production of divination for their ideological self-
representation.

9.5.3 Military Victory and the Right to Kingship: The Liver Model of Daduša

Although Daduša was king of Ešnunna rather than of Assyria, Ešnunna is a

key site in the development of the Tigridian cultural discourse of which Assyria
was part. Accordingly, Daduša’s liver model is included in this discussion as a
relevant example of how the royal use of certain scholarly text categories was
intended to influence the reception of history and to secure the representation
of a particular king. The purpose of King Daduša’s liver model – namely to

213 Reiner 1974.

214 Liverani 1993.
215 Westenholz 1997.
370 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

Fig. 55: Liver Model of Daduša Liver (after Al-Rawi 1994, 39, fig. 7).

align the individual king’s reign with the overall cosmic schema – is similar to
that of the prophecy for his predecessor on the throne of Ešnunna, Ibal-pi-El II.
Nothing is known about Daduša before the interaction between Ešnunna and
Šamšī-Adad I that is attested in the Mari letters,216 and the circumstances of
his ascension to the throne remain obscure. Daduša’s liver model, however,
reveals that his scholars were well versed in the divinatory tradition known
from Mari and that they considered it an appropriate medium for the writing
of history.
Daduša’s liver model is comparable to the liver models from Mari in its
combination of image, i.e. its representation of a particular formation of the
liver, and text (fig. 55). While the image of the liver models from Mari appears
to represent the protasis of the recorded omen, in Daduša’s liver model image
and text are disconnected in that the first part of the text referring to observa-
tion does not actually describe the features represented in the clay model, but
refers instead to a broader range of entrails including the belly, the heart, and
the gut.
Daduša’s liver model describes the king’s ascension to the throne in retro-
spect starting with a description of various pathological observations in the
entrails. In contrast to the Mari liver models, however, no preterite verbal form
is preserved in Daduša’s liver model, which uses the stative form instead. The
stative verbal form was favored by scholars to describe “scientifically observed
and recognized pieces of information, in the field of divination (we are mainly
thinking of hepatoscopy and astrology) just as in that of medicine, astronomy,

216 Charpin and Ziegler 2003.

 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 371

and mathematics.”217 As stated above, the “observed” features described in the

text of Daduša’s liver model do not relate to the signs incised on the model
itself but describe aspects of the belly, heart, and the gut, and ultimately quote
an omen related to the soft part of the breastbone of the sheep (kaskasu). Ob-
servations relating to numerous parts of the body of a sacrificial animal are
also known from the Old Babylonian period, linking the omen report recorded
in Daduša’s liver model to these Old Babylonian omens.218 The apodosis of
Daduša’s liver model omen implies the victory of the king, the particulars of
which are then described and connected to the reading of omens on the occa-
sion of Daduša’s accession to the throne.
The pathological configurations drawn on Daduša’s liver model include
features that are read at the beginning of an observation in the standard order
of reading the liver. Among these features are the sign denoting the “presence”
(manzāzu) or the “view” (naplastu),219 here represented doubled by the two
parallel lines on the right side of the liver (= the lobus sinister in modern ana-
tomical terms), followed by the “path” (padānu).220 The occurrence of a dou-
bled manzāzu/naplastu is known from clay models and omen collections and
generally implies a doubly positive sign indicating that “the gods are present
and willing to communicate.”221 The crescent like marks known as the “horn”
(qarnu) appear to provide information regarding the time of the king’s victory.
In the following lines, the victory of Daduša is presented as having taken
place either prior to his accession to the throne or during the first year of his
reign. Daduša’s liver model thus introduces a literary prototype – namely the
king’s accomplishment of a great victory in his first regnal year – that resurfa-
ces many centuries later in the Middle Assyrian royal inscriptions of Shalma-
neser I (1263‒1234 BCE), who uses this motif as a heroic-epic convention.222
Daduša’s liver model can thus be considered a literary creation derived from
the practice of omen observation that identifies the very image of the liver with
the “tablet of the gods” (ṭuppi ilāni), thereby advancing the notion that divine
favor accompanies the king’s reign.
Based on the above, it is possible to assume that scholars were able to
produce texts related to but not reflective of observational practice by the reign

217 Glassner 2000, 207.

218 Nougayrol 1967.
219 During the Old Babylonian period manzāzu came to replace naplastu, see CAD N/1, 306,
s.v. naplastu.
220 Horowitz, Oshima, and Winitzer 2010, 138.
221 Horowitz, Oshima, and Winitzer 2010, 139.
222 Tadmor 1981, 14 still thought of the motif as a “product of an indigenous Assyrian literary
tradition.”
372 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

of Daduša in the eighteenth century BCE. This competence involved writing

texts that transcended the simple image (protasis) and text (apodosis) relation-
ship represented in the liver models from Mari. Despite the uniqueness of the
Daduša liver model, the fact that the scribal communities of Mari and Ešnunna
both made use of clay liver models establishes that they formed part of a com-
mon cultural horizon.

Liver Model from the reign of Daduša, Tell Haddad, IM 85441

 1 ka-ar-šu-um šu-me-lam
 2 ta-ri-ik li-bu-um šu-me-lam ta-ri-ik
 3 ti-ra-nu 14 (Quotation of an Omen:) ka-ás-ka-su
 4 i-mi-tam ha-mi-iš i-na šu-me-el ha-x
 5 li-tum ia-tum i-[n]a qa-ti ab? X il?-tim?
Name of the diviner
 6 bārûm(máš.šu.gíd!.gíd!) dumu/tur x x ša [x] il?
Occasion of the Omen
 7 Da-du-ša i-na ni-x[x x d?b]a-ti-ri-t[im? (…)]
 8 ù né-pí-iš-tim ši-ru-u[m x x] um? X[…]
 9 warah(iti) Da-du-ša a-na kussîm(gu.za) x[…]
10 ù ši-mu-ru-um Ba-ti-[irki …]
11 [x (x)] x te-re-tum [ša-al-ma (or: i-ša-ra)]
12 perhaps nothing missing
1.e. i-na šàr-ru-ut Da-du-ša / ši-ru-um an-nu-um

 1 The belly was dark on the left.

 2 The heart was dark on the left.
 3 There were fourteen loops of the gut. “(If) the soft part of the breastbone
 4 is bent over on the right, from the left …
 5 the victory is mine.” By the hands of …
 6 the divination priest, son of …
 7 Daduša in […. The goddess?] Batiritum […]
 8 and the extispicy. The sign …
 9 The month that Daduša [ascended] to the throne …
10 and Šimurrum, Batir, …
11 … the omens were favorable.
1.e. At the (assumption of) kingship by Daduša, this was the state of the signs.223

Daduša and Ibal-pi-El II are the only kings of Ešnunna who are known to have
made use of the practice of extispicy or prophecy respectively in order to create
new literary forms that anchor their reigns in the divinely ordained cosmic
scheme. Both kings were the most powerful contemporaries of Šamšī-Adad I,
and it was under their rule that Ešnunna’s expansion reached its greatest ex-

223 al-Rawi 1994.

 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 373

tent; indeed, Šamšī-Adad I served as their vassal for some time.224 It might well
be that the great power of these two kings of Ešnunna was accompanied by a
heightened need for divine legitimization.

9.5.4 Ashurbanipal’s Appropriation of the Omen Compendia

This is also true – albeit on an altogether different scale – for the reigns of
Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal in the first millennium age of empires. Esarhad-
don and Ashurbanipal were both the beneficiaries of irregular succession to
the throne, and they struggled with the expansion of their empire and the ac-
companying stress placed on the existing bureaucratic structure. Ever more
frequent invocations of divine favor and sanction for their deeds – including
fratricide for Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal and numerous executions of high
officials for Esarhaddon – represents a hallmark of their commemorative in-
scriptions.225 In addition, Ashurbanipal, as noted throughout this book, was a
passionate and major collector of cultural texts.226 He was well versed in the
discipline of divination and communicated personally with his scholars regard-
ing which series they were to collect for his libraries and which excerpts from
particular series they were to copy; Ashurbanipal even wrote letters himself.
Ashurbanipal’s erudition and his familiarity with scholarship and cultural dis-
course must have acquainted him with the historical omen tradition, as dem-
onstrated by the excerpt tablet concerned with historical omens revolving
around the kings Sargon and Narām-Sîn of Akkad, which in turn motivated
him to establish himself as a paradigmatic king in ancient historiography.
Ashurbanipal is famous for his self-presentation in colophons as an intel-
lectual conversant in divination.227 In addition to the excerpt tablet with the
historical omen collection quoted above,228 there is a letter that lists historical
omens concerned with Ashurbanipal and Šamaš-šum-ukīn (Rm 2, 455), which
is discussed below, and another omen text (Rm 2, 134) written in Neo-Babyloni-

224 Charpin and Ziegler 2003.

225 Pongratz-Leisten 1999.
226 Maurice Rheims’ characterization of the art collector applies to Ashurbanipal’s collection
of divinatory, scientific, and literary texts to some degree: “l’objet d’art devient le symbole
du gout, de l’intelligence, de la puissance sociale, de la richesse du collectionneur, et donne
apparemment plus de prestige à ce dernier qu’au créateur” (Rheims 2002, 51).
227 BAK 100 and 101.
228 Chapter 9.5.1.
374 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

an script that refers to the kings Ashurbanipal, Hammurabi, and Itti-Marduk-

balāṭu, and also dates to the reign of Ashurbanipal.229
The letter testifies to Ashurbanipal’s personal endeavor to be included in
historical omens. It was written to him in the aftermath of his war against
Tammarītu II of Elam by a diviner who asks the king in which form he should
enter the apodosis referring to Ashurbanipal’s victory over the Elamite king. It
represents a unique testimony to the king’s aspiration of not only being accept-
ed in the ranks of scholarship but to obtain his place as paradigmatic king in
ancient historiography as well. Unfortunately, the obverse is very badly pre-
served, and so my rendering is confined to the preserved section on the re-
verse:

Rm 2, 455 (CT 35 pls. 37‒38)

Rev.
 1 [Omen for Ashurbani]pal, mighty king, reverent prince, of whom (it is said)
Ištar (walks) at the side of his a[rmy]
 2 They cut off [the head of Teumman, king of Ela]m in the midst of battle and
the son of Bēl-iqīša
 3 … -tuk of the Elamite they hung around his neck, and Ashurbanipal
 4 [went to Ninive]h, his royal residence. They were exulting joyfully and
performed music,
 5 the messenger? of Ummanigaš, king of Elam, he killed in front of
Ashurbanipal, king of the universe,
 6 and he sat on his throne. Ashurbanipal, king of the universe, at the command
of
 7 […] Tammarītu, king of Elam, together with his magnates
 8 rolled before him [in?] Nineveh, his royal residence.

 9 [whom Aššur and] Ištar love and lead with their full content, and Tammarītu
10 who had plotted for help of Šamaš-šum-ukīn, he himself, the diviner and his
magnates
11 went and kissed his feet, Tammaritu and the diviner accuse each other in front
of him.

12 [If …] the right and left side of the station are … it is the omen of Ashurbanipal,
king of the universe, (of whom it is said) that Šamaš and Ištar walk at the side
of his army and
13 killed (his enemies) in the midst of battle and effected their defeat.

14 [If …] in the lift of the head of the right lung there is a sign/omen (predicting)
the annihilation of the army, it is an omen of Šamaš-šum-ukīn,
15 [the treacherous brother, who] fought against the army of Ashurbanipal, the
beloved of the great gods, (but) was defeated.

229 Starr 1986, 630.

 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 375

16 … they seized in the midst of battle and … in front of Ashurbanipal, king of the
universe.
17 [omen of?] Šamaš-šum-ukīn, unfavorable.

18 [I have sent] to the king my lord, [the omens from the bārû]tu series, which I
have previously excerpted from the series.
19 The king my lord may see the earlier ones, these are the omens of the king, my
lord.
20 [Whatever is] acceptable to the king, my lord, we will enter into the series … of
Tammaritu
21 [who] plots for the help of Šamaš-šum-ukīn.
Edge
22 …. we have written for the omens of Tammaritu.
23 May … of your gods …230

With the demand to be entered in the omen series, Ashurbanipal revived the
tradition of historical omens, which is last known to have been applied to King
Nebuchadnezzar I (1125‒1104)231 and King Itti-Marduk-balāṭu (1139‒1132 BCE)
of the Second Dynasty of Isin in a text that likewise dates to Ashurbanipal’s
reign. This text is the omen text Rm 2, 134, written in Neo-Babylonian script
and dating to Ashurbanipal’s reign,232 which also refers to Hammurabi and
Ashurbanipal.
The key revelation of Ashurbanipal’s demand as reflected in the letter of
the diviner is that he knew about the tradition of historical omens, i.e. entering
the names of individual kings into the apodoses of omens and that he deemed
it important to be included among the paradigmatic kings in the omen com-
pendia, which encompassed historical and legendary kings alike. Both myth,
as represented in the figures of Gilgameš and Etana, and the distant past, as
represented by the kings of Akkad and Ur III in the omen tradition, enjoyed
the cultural status of sacred truth in ancient Mesopotamian societies. By align-
ing himself with these figures, Ashurbanipal clearly compares the historical
significance of his destruction of Elam with the military achievements of the
kings of Akkad, who established the world’s “first empire”. His victory over
Tammarītu II did not just represent an ordinary military campaign, but entailed
the obliteration of the state of Elam and the complete destruction of Susa, its
political center.233 For a brief moment in history, Assyrian power appeared to
align with the cosmic dimensions perceived by contemporary culture, and Ash-

230 Bauer 1933, 85‒87.

231 According to Starr 1985, 63 with reference to Thompson, RMA 200 r.5 in an astrological
text.
232 Starr 1985, 63 ff.
233 Potts 1999, 309 ff.; Fales 2001, 9 f.
376 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

urbanipal’s entry in the omen series is a direct reflection of such ideological

thinking. By inscribing himself into the authoritative and paradigmatic corpus
of the omen compendia, Ashurbanipal had stepped outside the system of com-
munication with the gods as controlled by the diviners and turned himself into
the epitome of the ideal king in compliance with the cosmic order (kittu). This
moment of universal control was fleeting, however, and the repercussions of
the vacuum left behind by Ashurbanipal’s destruction of Elam were manifest
in the rise of new political forces like the Medes and the Persians.
The letter of the diviner is unique in several respects, not least on account
of its being the latest example of an historical omen intended for inclusion in
the omen series relating to extispicy (iškar bārûti). The letter confirms that al-
though the notion of a standardized corpus of extispicy series (iškar bārûti) and
accompanying commentaries was already well established,234 the compilation
process retained its dynamism and remained subject to change. It also attests
to the significance of these omen series to Ashurbanipal. As discussed above,
the omen compendia differed fundamentally in their function from the practice
of taking omens, as omen compendia did not serve the immediate goal of
promulgating the message that the individual king’s reign had found divine
approval and that the king, consequently, had conformed to the expectations
of kingship. This purpose can still be ascribed to the earlier kings Daduša and
Ibal-pi-El II, because these monarchs recreated a literary text category to con-
vey the view that their ascent to the throne was divinely sanctioned. In the late
Sargonid period, however, the rewriting of history through the divine voice
reached another level altogether. In his oracle collections, Esarhaddon fash-
ioned a narrative regarding his ascent to the throne that was mediated through
the divine voice and constituted a model for irregular succession. Similarly,
Ashurbanipal’s inclusion of his victory over Elam in the authoritative and para-
digmatic corpus of the omen compendia served to convey the cosmic dimen-
sions of his dominion. Through their appropriation of the text categories of
oracle collections and omen compendia, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal turned
themselves into paradigmatic model kings.
This development was fostered by the scholars of Nineveh, who subjected
the bārûtu series to editing by “creating pairs of omens so that ‘right’/‘left’ in
the protases corresponded to ‘the king’/‘the enemy’ in the apodoses.”235 In this
way, scholars combined their competence in copying omens from their Babylo-
nian predecessors with their creative abilities to ensure the king’s centrality in
the omen series. Moreover, the version of the bārûtu series that dates to the

234 Rochberg 1999; Frahm 2011; Veldhuis 2010b.

235 Jeyes 1997, 63.
 Ashurbanipal and the Omen Tradition 377

reign of Ashurbanipal includes two omens “which state that 1) Sargon defeated
Elam and 2) Sargon enlarged his palace.”236 These entries do not reflect the
deeds of Sargon II, but are to be associated with Ashurbanipal, who uses the
name of Sargon of Akkad as a foil in order to associate himself with the heroic
past. Additionally, these entries betray commonalities with tablets 14‒16 of the
series ‘interpretation’ (Multābiltu), which also contains omens referring to Ash-
urbanipal.237
Further evidence of Ashurbanipal’s involvement in the textualization pro-
cess of the omen compendia is provided by the hitherto unattested ‘orientation
tablet’, which assigns the designation ‘right’ and ‘left’ to each subsection of
the liver and the lung. This tablet bears Ashurbanipal’s colophon, which
claims that he wrote the tablet in the assembly of the scholars.238 Another indi-
cation of Ashurbanipal’s personal involvement is the fact that commentaries
and excerpts from commentaries sometimes contain illustrations of the kakku
and padānu features of the liver or of parts of the lung – these aids are obvious-
ly meant to facilitate the king’s reading and comprehension of these texts.239
Evidence of this kind points not only to Ashurbanipal’s familiarity with tradi-
tion, but also to his ability to participate actively in the recreation of scholarly
divinatory texts and in the reshaping of the stream of tradition.
Two points are critical to a correct understanding of the royal appropria-
tion of divination. First, the intricate relationship between divination and law
fostered a weltanschauung in which the divine world, nature, and human agen-
cy were all subject to the notion of cosmic stability, order, and regularity (kittu).
This system of thought was challenged during the first millennium BCE, when
Esarhaddon usurped the prophetic voice of Ištar to write an account of his
ascension to the throne that purported to be oracular. Second, the intertextual
relationship between omen compendia, chronicles, and historical legends as
well as astrological omens and literary prophecies reflects a notion of historiog-
raphy that is paradigmatic in nature and unconcerned with the reconstruction
of event history. The king’s appropriation of omen practice and of the textual
stream of tradition represented in the omen compendia thus stands out as a

236 Jeyes 1997, 63, BM 26472, King, Chron. 2, 3‒14 with Omen 1 (obv. 1‒3) referring to his
defeat of Elam and omen 8 (obv. 27‒29) referring to the enlargement of the palace.
237 Jeyes 1997, 64.
238 Nougayrol 1968, 34‒36; for the most complete one see CT 31 1‒5. For the colophon see
Hunger 1968, 97 no. 318 (Asb. Type b).
239 Jeyes 1997, 63 with reference to an Old Babylonian example edited by Nougayrol 1941, 81
r. 26 and examples from Nineveh, Nougayrol 1974, 61‒68, for illustrated padānu commentaries
see CT 20 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, CT 20 27‒28 (K 4069) + CT 20 21 (81‒2‒4, 397); Ki 1904‒10‒9, 100.
Illustrated hašû commentaries are: CT 31 38‒40; K 3967*, 81‒2‒4, 443*.
378 The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

key cultural strategy that reflects a notion of cosmic order in which divine
intentionality and royal agency were inextricably intertwined: appropriating
omen practice serves to proclaim the success of the king’s reign, while appro-
priating the omen series as part of the stream of tradition serves to portray the
king as a paradigmatic model.
10 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian
State Rituals
10.1 Cultic and Ritual Contributions to Assyrian Ideological
Discourse
When Assyria developed into a territorial state during the Middle Assyrian peri-
od and then a large-scale empire during the Neo-Assyrian period, it faced the
problem of integrating local communities and their activities into a more com-
plex centralized organizational system. In order to control conquered regions,
Assyria relied not only on its superiority in technological warfare, but also on
various economic, ideological, and political strategies.1 Throughout Mesopota-
mian history, rulers made use of similar strategies to maintain their authority,
favoring one or the other; in Assyria, these strategies were formed into a coher-
ent system and perfected. During the Middle Assyrian period, Assyrian expan-
sion toward the Hābūr and beyond 2 prompted the implementation of economic
measures that strengthened Aššur’s position as the imperial center. A two-
tiered system served to bind the provinces to the administrative and cultic cen-
ter of Aššur, namely the payment of regular taxes to the palace and the month-
ly delivery of gināʾu offerings to the Aššur temple.
Information regarding the gināʾu offering comes from tablets found in ten
clay pots at the southwest side of the large forecourt of the Aššur temple of the
Middle Assyrian period, rebuilt under Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE). Nearly
all of these tablets concern the administration of the gināʾu offerings in the
Aššur temple.3 Among these texts are tabular lists that supply data in con-
densed form regarding the total amount of the four different kinds of gināʾu
offerings from the provinces of the Assyrian empire that were delivered to Aš-
šur in one year, including cereals, honey, sesame, and fruit. There was a great
deal of variation in the quantity and nature of deliveries from the various prov-
inces from year to year, but the average annual total received by the Aššur
temple is estimated to be approximately “1000 homer (c. 100 m3) cereals, 10
homer (c. 1 m3) honey, 100 homer (c. 10 m3) sesame and 50 homer (c. 5 m3)
fruit.”4 These deliveries were managed by the supervisor of the gināʾu offerings

1 For economy, politics, military, and ideology as the four sources of power see Mann 1986.
2 Pongratz-Leisten 2011b.
3 Weidner 1935‒36, 13 with n. 87 and 21 with n. 148; Postgate 1985; Pedersén 1985, 43‒53,
Archive M 4; Freydank 1991, 1992, 1997, and 2006; Maul 2013.
4 Pedersén 1985, 46.
380 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

(šā muhhi gināʾe). Three such supervisors are known by name from the period
between Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE) and Aššur-dan I (1169‒1134),5
though during the reign of Tiglath-pileser I (1114‒1076 BCE) a comparable of-
fice – perhaps the same office with a different designation – was held by a
person named Ezbu-lēšer, who bore the title rab gināʾe.
Although most of the tabular lists of gināʾu offerings can be dated to Ti-
glath-Pileser I, eponyms in some of the texts indicate that the archive begins
toward the end of Tukultī-Ninurta I’s reign;6 as such, the archive documents a
practice stretching over more than a hundred years. The tabular lists are five
column-tablets of horizontal format, of which four columns list quantities of
cereals, honey, sesame, and fruit, while the fifth column lists provinces. These
tablets give a sense of the territory that was actually under the control of the
Assyrian king,7 and it is interesting to note that the deliveries are designated
by the term maddattu, “tribute” that was supplied by provincial governors.8 In
other words, only the provinces of the land of Aššur (māt Aššur) were obliged
to send these regular deliveries – not the vassal kingdoms. Twenty-five tabular
lists have been identified thus far.9 The headings or subscripts of these lists
refer either to ‘received regular offerings’ (gināʾu mahru)10 or ‘missing regular
offerings’ (gināʾu muṭṭāʾu).11 Some lists bear the subscript “later/final? cleared
list of the eponym PN” (ṭuppu urkītu za(k)kūtu ša līme PN).12 The list of provin-
ces obliged to send regular deliveries to the Aššur temple was probably estab-
lished under Ninurta-apil-ekur (1181‒1169 BCE), though the practice essentially
dates back to the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I.13
The gināʾu offerings supplied by the provinces represent only very basic
provisions for the Aššur temple, and their purpose appears to have been pri-
marily symbolic. From a financial perspective, the support provided by the
gināʾu offerings was not of great consequence and could have been provided
by the lands of the temple itself. These offerings thus served to express the

5 Aba-lā-īde, Sîn-uballiṭ, and Sîn-nādin-apli, Freydank 1992, 276‒278.

6 Pedersén 1985, 44 with n. 7 goes back to Aššur-dan or earlier, while Freydank 1997, 48
assumes a terminus post quem around the end of the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I.
7 Weidner 1935‒36, 13 n. 87; Postgate 1985, 96 f., more cautiously Freydank 1997, 51.
8 Maul 2013, 564‒65.
9 Freydank 2006, 219 f.
10 Freydank 1997, 48 n. 21 with reference to VS 21 21:32, VAT 19200:24 = MARV 5 14; VAT
19206:1; VAT 19198:1 = MARV 9 9; MARV 9 12.
11 Freydank 1997, 48 n. 22 VAT 19208:28.
12 Freydank 1997, 49 with n. 23 referring to VAT 15491:26 = MARV 5 1; VAT 15492:26 = MARV
5 2, VAT 19200:24 = MARV 9 9.
13 Freydank 2006, 221.
 Cultic and Ritual Contributions to Assyrian Ideological Discourse 381

binding together of the imperial center and the imperial periphery,14 a relation-
ship reinforced by the performance of the tākultu-ritual, as is discussed below.
A modified system of regular offerings appears to have operated during the
Neo-Assyrian period, as is demonstrated by a decree of Adad-nīrārī III (810‒
783 BCE) concerning regular offerings for the Aššur temple,15 sealed with the
seal of Aššur and Ninurta. In this instance, however, only a few towns – all
located in the province of Arbela – had the obligation to supply offerings. This
document contains the interesting regulation decreeing that towns, fields,
houses, orchards, and people are not to be given to any other governor, only
to the one responsible for the Aššur temple.
Several letters from the Neo-Assyrian period sent to the king by temple
officials report failure to deliver offerings to the Aššur temple and other tem-
ples and ask the king what action should be taken.16 In the following case, the
complaint concerns the failure to deliver livestock:

1
[To the king], my lord: [your servant, D]adî. [Good health t]o the king, my lord. May
Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord.
5
Two oxen and 20 sheep, offerings of the king’s heart (to be provided) by the city of
Diquqina, have not been delivered. The king, my lord, should inquire about them. Three
rams are for the temple of Dag[an, x] are for the town of [… for the me]al of […]. It has
now been [x] years that they have not been delivering. They have ceased. The king, my
lord [should …] his soldiers.
r.2
The priest of Aššur consumes [(…)] 20 sheep from the [offerin]gs of Šebat (XI). Last year
I wrote to the king, my lord, about it. The king, my lord, wrote back, saying: “Assign
(them) to the storehouse for pickled meat.” I assigned (them). Now the temple scribe is
saying to me: “Give them to the harem governess of the Inner City.” Now then, I have
written to the king, my lord. What is it [that] the [ki]ng, my lord, commands?17

In addition to the administrative and economic strategies for integrating vari-

ous communities into a coherent imperial system described above, there was
also an ideological dimension. It is breathtaking to observe how from the reign
of Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE) onward, Assyrian and Babylonian scholars
creatively engaged with cultural models extant in the Hurrian and Babylonian
tradition and interweaved mythology and ritual performance in order to anchor
the image of Assyrian kingship in the contemporary Weltanschauung.

14 Maul 2013, 569.

15 SAA 12 no. 71. SAA 12 nos. 72 and 73 probably represent portions of this text, although SAA
12 no. 73 is apparently a prism fragment.
16 See the letters written by Dadî, for instance, SAA 13 nos. 18‒24.
17 SAA 13 no. 18.
382 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

10.2 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating

in a Changing Political Matrix
A brief discussion of the meager evidence of ritual texts from the Middle Assyri-
an period serves as a useful starting point for discussing the Neo-Assyrian state
rituals as they provide a glimpse of the intercultural dynamics at the moment
of major Assyrian expansion towards the west and the south. These Middle
Assyrian ritual texts include a ritual for the god Adad, a ritual for Marduk,
which will not be included in Simo Parpola’s forthcoming edition of the Assyri-
an Rituals, and a ritual for a mouth-tongue object (ka-eme). All three texts are
poorly understood, and I by no means claim to be able to add substantially to
their understanding. These texts do, however, offer an insight into the elabo-
rate treatment of ritual performance by scholars already in the Middle Assyrian
period, who concerned themselves with various minutiae of ritual performance
and with the integration of various cultic locations in ritual performance. I will
quote the texts in full in the hope of instigating further discussion of them in
the future.
The ritual for Adad, KAR 154, was first edited by Brigitte Menzel. It begins
with offerings in the bīt šalīme, which was probably located within the Adad
temple, and then describes a procession of the god from his temple to the gate
of the storehouse (bīt abusāte) of Ninurta,18 located in the Aššur temple, proba-
bly near to the entrance area. The procession involves the Aššur Gate located
to the west, somewhere between the mušlālu and the Aššur temple,19 the Sam-
uh Gate (location unknown), the bīt hamri, and the Quay Gate (location un-
known, but probably in the western part of the northern Quay wall 20), and
then returns to the Adad Temple. The procession thus links the entire northern
part of the citadel in the city of Aššur topographically. The main participants
in the ritual are the qadištu-women, who repeatedly perform inhu-songs for the
god at various locations included in the procession, and the šangû of Adad
who performs purifications. Ritual prescriptions focus on the movement be-
tween the sites at which the cultic performance is carried out by the qadištu-
women and the šangû. The jewelry of the qadištu-women is referred to explicit-
ly, and this jewelry is removed upon their return. The text concludes with an
exact listing of the distribution of meat, which is shared by the gods and the
ritual participants. The divine recipients include Adad, Šala, Taramua, Kubu,

18 Note that this location is not mentioned among the parts dedicated to Ninurta in the Götter-
adressbuch and may therefore have disappeared by the Neo-Assyrian period.
19 Unger 1932, 177; Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 26 f.; George 1988, 32.
20 Schwemer 2001, 248.
 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating in a Changing Political Matrix 383

and Anu, while the alahinnu-official – a high status member of the administra-
tive personnel of the temple responsible for the inspection of the garments, the
jewelry, and probably the treasury of the gods – is included among the human
recipients alongside the qadištu women and the šangû.21 The Aššur temple was
apparently provided for first, but the relevant part of the text is only fragmenta-
rily preserved. The king is conspicuously absent from the ritual.

KAR 154 (Menzel 1981, vol. 2 T 2 ff.)

 1 On the day when they … Adad, they let come out the qadištu-women,
 2 they prepare x‒1/2 Qa bread, 7 bowls, 1 Qa aromatic plants, 2 Sutu beer in the
bīt šalīme,
 3 from there three silas of bread (and) three bowls (with beer) before the temple of
Adad, and 1 sila of bread and one bowl (with beer) (corrupt)
 4 The qadištu-women recite the inḫu-somg before (the statue of) Adad, they finish
the inḫu-song.
v5 The šangû-priest performs the purification. The qadištu-women praise the god.
 6 The šangû-priest and the qadištu-women leave the temple of Adad.
 7 They go to the gate of the storehouse (bīt abusāte) of Ninurta at the Aššur
temple, the šangû-priest takes a seat and the qadištu-women
 8 recite the inḫu-song. The qadištu-women finish the inḫu-song, the šangû-priest
performs the purification,
 9 the qadištu-women praise the god. He leaves through the Aššur gate and goes to
the Sammuḫ-gate. The qadištu-women recite the inḫu-song,
10 they finish the inḫu-song, the šangû-priest performs the purification. The qadištu-
women praise the god. He offers 1 Qa bread,
11 1 bowl, 1 Qa beer by spilling six times from the bowl,
12 and he pours from the libation bowl. He evokes the name of Ea-šarru (and) of
Digla, ditto Šamaš.
13 The qadištu-women go to the bīt ḫamri, the šangû-priest takes a seat. The qadištu-
women
14 recite the inḫu-song. The šangû-priest performs the purification. 1 Qa bread 1 Qa
beer …
15 … bīt ḫamri …
rest of obverse is broken
beginning of reverse is broken.
 1′ the šangû-priest …
 2′ …
 3′ … 1 1/2 Qa bread 5 Qa beer, 1 thigh for the šangû-priest, he provides [the
temple]
 4′ of Aššur, ditto of Adad. The length of the thigh …
 5′ they destroy. The rest of the bread and the beer at the quay gate the šangû-priest
and the qadištu-women …

21 Menzel 1981, vol. 1, 224‒228.

384 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

 6′ The šangû-priest and the qadištu-women return to the Adad temple, they remove
the jewelry of the qadištu-women.
 7′ 3 Qa bread, 1 sutu beer, 1 sheep, 1 Qa aromatic plants they prepare before Adad.
 8′ From this sheep the breast, the shoulder, the neck, the hocks, 1 thigh, nine rips;
 9′ 3 rips, 3 vertebras before Šala, 3 rips, 3 vertebras before Taramua,
10′ 3 rips, 3 vertebras before Kubu of the Adad temple, the left shoulder before Anu,
11′ the buqurru-piece before Kubu of the Anu temple; the intestines (are the share of)
the chief musician,
12′ the front legs (are the share of) the alaḫinnu-official, the qadištu-women keep the
rest of the meat.
13′ The šangû-priest of Adad takes the skin, the sinews and the back meat.

14′ After the chief musician, the qadištu-women and the pupils? have finished their
songs, …
15′ …, the bowls, …, the pot, the wood, the water, the ḫaṣbu-pot, …
16′ …

The central features of this Middle Assyrian ritual are familiar from elsewhere
in the Syrian and Northern Mesopotamian region, particularly the association
of qadištu-women with the god Adad, known from Kiš and Sippar, and with the
goddess Annunītu, the warrior aspect of Ištar, known from Mari.22 The qadištu-
women are women of special status who could own property, nurse the chil-
dren of other people, and act as midwives, with which they are associated in
the Babylonian Flood Story Atrahasīs. This is interesting insofar as in the Neo-
Assyrian period Ištar assumes the role of midwife for the king, while already
in the Early Dynastic period the nu-gig/qadištu is a central figure in the cult
of Inanna, who herself adopts the epithet nu-gig.23 Further, according to the
catalogue of songs KAR 158, the inhu-songs – here performed by the qadištu-
women for Adad – are supposed to be addressed to Ištar. In a Neo-Assyrian
ritual referred to by Joan Westenholz, the qadištu-woman uses salt to undo a
lightheartedly sworn oath.24 It should be noted in this regard that in the Middle
Assyrian royal inscriptions Adad and Ištar appear together in curse formulas,
as they do for the first time in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend. Although the
goddess Ištar does not appear in KAR 154, the cultic actions performed for
Adad only make sense through his association with her. Consequently, even
though the various constituents of this ritual are not always explicit, it never-
theless reflects the cultural context of Middle Assyrian Aššur.
The other Middle Assyrian ritual worth mentioning is VAT 16435, originally
published by F. Köcher under the title Ein mittelassyrisches Ritualfragment zum

22 Westenholz 1989, 253.

23 Zgoll 1997.
24 Ebeling 1953, 43.
 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating in a Changing Political Matrix 385

Neujahrsfest. Unfortunately, the excavation number is lost, making it impossi-

ble to know whether the text is from Aššur or Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. On paleo-
graphical grounds Köcher dated the text between 1200 and 1000, i.e. after the
conquest of Babylon by Tukultī-Ninurta I. The language is Middle Assyrian and
the choice of the ritual language, i.e. the use of the D stem and Š stem to
describe the movement of the deity,25 also points to Assyrian authorship of the
text, as in Babylonia the G stem is used in such contexts instead. Furthermore,
it is only Marduk who takes a seat on the Dais of Destinies (parak šimāte), a
practice reminiscent of the much later performance of the new year festival
in Sargonid times, where this act is performed by Aššur alone in contrast to
Babylonian custom. Köcher suggests an Assyrian setting for the performance
of the ritual; this is, however, unlikely, given that there was no Dais of Destinies
in Aššur at this time, at least according to Sennacherib, who built an entire
annex to the Aššur temple in order to install this particular cultic feature.26
Apart from the fact that there is no archaeological evidence for an architectural
structure predating Sennacherib’s festival house and that there is also no evi-
dence in later texts that the procession made its way to the festival house on
boats, it is hard to imagine that at any time in Assyrian history any divinity
could rival Aššur to such a degree in the official cult of the city. My suggestion,
therefore, has been to understand this ritual text as a prescription intended to
help the Assyrian king to correctly perform the ritual in Babylon – not neces-
sarily during the time of Tukultī-Ninurta, who had abducted the statue of Mar-
duk, but under the reign of a later king, perhaps Tiglath-Pileser I.

The first lines are very fragmentary

10′ [The šan]gû approaches the gods. The king takes the lead of the gods. [The king
and
11′ the šan]gû let Marduk si[t] on the Dais of Des[t]inies.
12′ All the [rem]aining gods they do not let take a seat.
13′ [One] brick oven, the DUMU.AN.KI-ti-i-di
14′ lays out charcoal on top (of it). One live lamb, opposite Marduk,
15′ they cut up into two (parts). They place (them) on top of the charcoal.
16′ Half a QA of juniper, half a QA of chopped cedar, three kallu-bowls of maṣhatu-
flour, the king
17′ – inst[ead of] the šangû – sprinkles on top of the lamb. One lahhanu-flask
18′ of wine (and) one lahhanu-flask of beer, he libates
19′ on the ground on both sides of the oven. The šangû [c]arries water for the [ha]nd
of Marduk.
20′ The šangû approaches Marduk. The king goes befo[re] the god.

25 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 151.

26 See my discussion in Chapter 10.4.
386 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

21′ He walks (the length of) two ikû-fields. They appease Marduk. The king offers
22′ two sheep before Marduk. They set up the (two) heads before Marduk.
23′ The king libates two lahhanu-flasks of wine on the ground.
24′ When Marduk and the gods exit the Gate of Marduk of the city gate of the city,
25′ they appease Marduk at the cross-bar of the city gate (known as) “He
circumambulated and stood, Marduk”.
26′ They appease Marduk. The king offers two sheep before Marduk.
27′ They set up the (two) heads before Marduk. The king libates two lahhanu-flasks
28′ of wine [on] the ground. He sets Marduk in motion. He [lea]ds (him) to the b[ank
of the river]. The king offe[rs] two sheep before Marduk. [The (two) heads]
29′ he sets up [before] Marduk. The king libates two lahhanu-flasks of [wine].
30′ They make Marduk, Zarpanītu, and Nabû
31′ [climb the boats]. Ea … to […]
32′ … the go]ds to the boats […]

The third Middle Assyrian ritual worth mentioning is the text KAR 139, which
has prompted much speculation regarding the possible existence in Assyria of
a mystery cult linked to the goddess Ištar, a view advanced in particular by A.
Leo Oppenheim, Simo Parpola, Joan Westenholz, and Eckart Frahm.27 KAR 139
was first edited by Erich Ebeling28 and discussed by A. Leo Oppenheim,29 and
has since been edited anew by Brigitte Menzel.30 Oppenheim argues that Ištar
assumes two different roles in this ritual, “first as a center of a secret cult
association, and second, as a mediatrix, an intercessor with the gods on behalf
of the suffering men who turn to her sacred symbol, called Mouth-and-Tongue,
in order to reach out effectively toward the distant gods.”31 A similar view is
adopted by Simo Parpola, who also places KAR 139 in the context of a mystery
cult. As I have argued in an earlier article,32 applying the notion of the Greek
mystery cult to Assyrian religion is problematic because we do not know of
any Assyrian ritual that describes an initiation similar to that of the Greek mys-
tery cults, incorporating the ritual sequence of purification (kάθαρσισ), initia-
tion in the form of instruction (λόγος), and vision (τελετή).33 Attestations of
visions, auditions, and ecstasy – which are described in the context of prophe-
cy, especially in the Mari letters – do not amount to a mystery cult linked to
Ištar. Further, Oppenheim’s suggestion that piriltu/pirištu should be connected

27 Oppenheim 1965, 255; Parpola 1999 xxxiv; Westenholz 1998, 455; Frahm 2001, 39.
28 Ebeling 1918.
29 Oppenheim 1965.
30 Menzel 1981, vol. 2, T 1‒2.
31 Oppenheim 1965, 261.
32 Pongratz-Leisten 2008, 70.
33 Cancik 1998, 174. For the Greek Mystery religions see the more recent treatments by Burkert
1983, 248‒297; and Parker 2005, 334‒368.
 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating in a Changing Political Matrix 387

with a “body of rules imparted in some way exclusively to a particular group

of worshippers of a deity”34 and that these rules refer to moral and behavioral
obligations seems far-fetched in the context of Assyrian and even broader an-
cient Near Eastern religion, as religious knowledge primarily served to enable
correct communication with the gods. As I have argued, moreover, exclusivity
of knowledge was practiced in scholarly circles; this is conveyed in the Enme-
duranki Legend, in which the king represents himself as the hinge between the
scholars and diviners, transferring divine knowledge to select members of the
ancient Babylonian cult centers. Given the explicitness with which texts com-
ment on the relationship between the king and Inanna/Ištar throughout Meso-
potamian history, one would expect similar evidence for the members of the
mystery cult. Such evidence is, however, lacking: “contrary to the mysteries in
which knowledge benefits the individual for his or her personal transforma-
tion, in Sumerian and Assyrian-Babylonian ideology knowledge is given to the
king to benefit the society and the cosmos as a whole … If the king refers to
this knowledge, he always refers to pragmatic knowledge enabling him to carry
out his role as leader. From the perspective of Ashurbanipal’s self-praise,
which focuses on his training in scribal, cultic, military, and hunting skills,
this knowledge may be defined as education rather than initiation. Finally,
ancient Near Eastern culture exhibits no sign of controlling religious behavior
or defining boundaries of the accepted religion as do the later mystery reli-
gions.”35
The ritual described in KAR 139 takes place in the bīt ēqi in Kār-Tukultī-
Ninurta. It is not yet known whether the bīt ēqi was associated with the temple
of Ištar, comparable to cultic practice in the city of Aššur. A ritual involving
the ēqu as an object is only attested in the series Iqqur īpuš, in which the king
places it in front of Adad.36 The ēqu ritual appears to have originated in the
Hurrian milieu, as it is only attested in Nuzi, Middle Assyrian, Neo-Assyrian,
and Standard Babylonian, and is geographically confined to the Upper Meso-
potamian-Hurrian regions.37 Daniel Schwemer observes that Hurrian egi
“spring, innermost part” plays a role in the cult of Ištar-Šauška.38 This is inter-
esting insofar as the Götteradressbuch lists a dgašan ēqi among the gods of the
Ištar temple at Nineveh.39 The ritual participants in KAR 139 are the šangû, the

34 Oppenheim 1965, 255.

35 Pongratz-Leisten 2008, 72.
36 Schwemer 2001, 601 with fn. 4864 with reference to Labat 1965, 104 § 39 and KAR 212 I
49 ff.
37 Schwemer, ibid.
38 Schwemer, ibid with reference to Wegner, 1981, 106.
39 Menzel 1981, vol. 2, T 152 no. 64: 98.
388 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

owner of the sacrifice, and a ritual object called “Mouth-Tongue” (ka-eme).

Such tongue objects are known primarily from eliminatory rites in the Hittite
cult in which they serve to materialize curses and maledictions spoken against
the royal couple and, once materialized, are ritually discarded. There are, how-
ever, also tongue-objects made of silver or gold which represent benedic-
tions.40 Volkert Haas has already observed that the latter function must have
applied to the Mouth-Tongue object used in KAR 139.41 Here it assumes a medi-
ating function on behalf of the owner of the sacrifice before the goddess Ištar.
Such beneficial function of this object is also attested in šuilla-prayers from
Aššur addressed to Nusku and Ea.42 It further occurs in the legends of Kassite
seals, which led Wiebke Meinhold to identify this object with the rhombus-
shaped symbol in the iconography of Kassite seals and various Neo-Assyrian
seals.43 In its ritual function the Mouth-Tongue object is also attested among
the minor deities receiving offerings in the Coronation Ritual 44 and in the Neo-
Assyrian tākultu-ritual.45 Both texts belong to the official royal cult. Oppenheim
notes that the šangû does not participate in the ritual actively but speaks in
the name of Ištar after the owner of the sacrificial lamb has performed his ritual
actions. This seems to be a very important detail because it recalls the context
of prophecy in which the prophets convey the oracle of Ištar: “the possibility
of a link to prophecy is corroborated by the fact that the text not only mentions
the secrets of Ištar, pirišti Ištar, but also the abat Ištar, ‘the word of Ištar,’ a
technical term used later in the Sargonid period to denote the oracles of
Ištar.”46 In my former treatment of the text I conceded that, if this text is sup-
posed to revolve around the figure of the king, one should expect that the
cultic participant is addressed as “king” (šarru). I still regard it as plausible
that the ritual represents a mandatory preparatory step to be performed by the
crown prince before becoming king and going through the Coronation Ritual,
especially as the Mouth-Tongue object figures among the recipients of offerings
in the latter ritual. The other possible scenario would be that this ritual repre-
sents a ceremony incumbent upon prophets before they assumed their position
in the temple, in order to guarantee that the content of the oracles delivered

40 Haas 2003 vol. 2, 596‒605, esp. 596‒598.

41 Haas 2003 vol. 2, 598.
42 KAR 58: 38 ka eme liq-bu-ú sig₅-te with duplicate King, BMS, no. 6: 33 (Nusku); KAR 59
rev. 12 with a late dupl. SpTU III no. 78: 1′ (Ea), see Meinhold 2009, 130‒136.
43 Meinhold 2009, 131.134 ff.
44 Parpola SAA 20 no. 7 ii 10.
45 Menzel 1981, vol. 2, T 115, no. 54: iii 7.
46 Pongratz-Leisten 2008, 73.
 Three Middle Assyrian Rituals Originating in a Changing Political Matrix 389

by Ištar on behalf of the king would not reach any unauthorized person. In
this case it is possible to compare this Middle Assyrian ritual to the protocôle
des devins performed by the diviners when they entered the service of the king
in Old Babylonian Mari.47

KAR 139 (Menzel 1981, vol. 2 T1‒2):

 1 As soon as the right moment is at hand, the owner of the sacrificial animal enters
the bīt ēqi.
 2 In the bīt ēqi he approaches, from the right, the offering table, which stands in
front of the ka-eme (mouth-tongue).
 3 He lights the censer, which is in front of the ka-eme, with the torch in his hand.
 4 He (then) takes the torch in his left hand and twice pours aromatics
 5 on the censer in front of the ka-eme. He breaks the la’tu-bread
 6 upon the offering table; twice he tilts the bowl (with the beer),
 7 in two libations he empties the beer into the vat. He (then) scatters mixed
 8 incense on a niknakku-censer. He places a sassurtu-object
 9 weighing half a mina of lead before the ka-eme (and) prostrates himself.
10 The šangû-priest blesses the owner of the sacrificial animal, saying: “May the ka-
eme
11 speak nicely of you before Ištar. May it take your word before Ištar.
12 As this torch is bright, may Ištar decree brightness and prosperity to you.
13 Guard the word and secret of Ištar!”
Rest of the front of the tablet is broken away.
Rev.
Beginning of the reverse is broken away.
 1′ … he places …
 2′ The šangû-priest blesses him saying: “May Ištar-of-the-Heavens speak nicely to …
 3′ about you. As [this] torch
 4′ is bright, may Ištar decree brightness and prosperity to you.
 5′ Guard the word and secret of Ištar!
 6′ Should you leak out the word of Ištar, you shall not live,
 7′ and if you will not guard her secrets, you shall not prosper.
 8′ May Ištar guard your mouth and tongue!” (break)
Scenario for the ‘right moment’ in the great bīt ēqi of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta.

While at the moment it is difficult to pinpoint the exact contribution of these

Middle Assyrian rituals to Assyrian royal discourse, they all reveal in one way
or another Assyrian interaction with either Syro-Anatolian or Babylonian cul-
tures and thus directly reflect Assyrian expansion during the second half of
the second millennium BCE. They also provide excellent testimony to the fact
that political expansion and control over foreign territory went hand in hand

47 Durand 1988, 13‒5.

390 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

with the appropriation or adaptation of cultural practice that was deemed ben-
eficial for the institution of kingship.

10.3 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period

10.3.1 Introduction

The Assyrian state rituals of the Sargonid period are a powerful mechanism for
publicizing the body politic of the king in his cosmic function. The corpus of
rituals discussed below demonstrate the effective adaptation by Assyrian
scholars of Sumero-Babylonian and Hurrian myth and ritual practice in order
to generate an Assyrian ideological program centered on the figure of the king
as the human agent of the supreme god Aššur. Reading the rituals as a group
rather than individually enables us to appreciate the “syntax” of Assyrian ritu-
al, built on a number of constituents that continuously reiterate the king’s pri-
mary task of securing the cosmic order; this demonstrates that Assyrian state
rituals from the Middle Assyrian period onward were developed by informed
scholars for an educated audience that was able to identify the plentiful and
sophisticated allusions to mythology that were integrated in ritual perfor-
mance.
Ceremonial public performance of rituals figures as one of the central devi-
ces used to manifest divine support for the king’s authority. The efficacy of the
Neo-Assyrian ritual performances pertaining to the Šabatu-Addaru-Nisannu cy-
cle in particular can only be understood when they are approached in conjunc-
tion with the cultic commentaries published by Alasdair Livingstone48 and the
extant corpus of ancient Near Eastern mythology centered on the divine figure
of the warrior god. Although cultic commentaries have for a long time been
perceived as an esoteric genre somewhat disconnected from the rest of cultural
production, the corpus of cultic commentaries works to illuminate the meaning
of Assyrian rituals and at the very least sheds light on how ritual performances
were understood in certain scholarly circles in the late Neo-Assyrian period.49
To the uninformed reader, prescriptions for ritual performance can appear to
be little more than instructions for the preparation of sumptuous offerings and
the movement of ritual participants between various localities. Cultic commen-
taries, however, explain how rituals reiterate a sequence of action that com-

48 Livingstone 1986 and 1989.

49 This has already been recognized to some degree by Thorkild Jacobsen 1975, 74.
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 391

bines hunting, warfare, cosmic battle, and the renewal of the king’s status as
ruler of the universe in a continuum of confrontation with the forces of chaos,
which are defeated and brought under Assyrian control. Unlike Greek drama,
this reenactment of the cosmic battle does not operate in a linear narrative.
Instead, ritual prescriptive texts, ritual reports, and commentary literature
choose key moments of action, along with objects, songs, and words that refer-
ence these moments, and use these to evoke two elements of the common cul-
tural memory, namely 1) the well-known battle narrative revolving around the
warrior god Ninurta, and 2) theogony referencing the notion of regicide.
The ideological implications of these Neo-Assyrian state rituals reflect the
ancient world’s perspective on kingship, in which the king’s function as guar-
antor of civic and cosmic order is central. It is this royal obligation that ex-
plains the pervasiveness of combat myths and their ritual reenactment in royal
contexts. Myth and ritual serve as explanatory patterns for the developing ideo-
logical framework, which not only asserts a utopian vision of the king master-
ing any potential disruptive forces but also conveys a notion of cohesion and
consent among all the peoples of the empire. Myth and ritual were a key part
of cultural discourse and were as important as pragmatic action in the consoli-
dation and stabilization of Assyrian power and control, both in the imperial
heartland and in the provinces. Myth and ritual were powerful means for visu-
alizing and negotiating the asymmetrical power relationships represented by
the monarchical system, and, as is apparent in the correspondence between
the king and his scholars, they were carefully orchestrated to reinforce the
king’s historical and cosmic role.
A family of exorcists located in Aššur, known primarily through the figure
of its chief Kiṣir-Aššur (the author of several state rituals) and his apprentices,
was responsible for organizing the cult of the Aššur temple, i.e. the state cult,
in the Sargonid period.50 Throughout Assyrian history, even when it was not
the political capital, the city of Aššur retained its status as a cultural and reli-
gious center of primary importance and as a center for the creation, elabora-
tion, and performance of state rituals, as well as serving as the burial place of
Assyrian kings. As is discussed below, the purpose of Assyrian state rituals
transcends the legitimization of the status quo and the enhancement of royal
authority. Although these rituals embody certain views of how the world and
society are constructed,51 they also respond to specific historical situations and
are therefore capable of transforming and reinventing tradition.52 This applies

50 Maul 2010.
51 Kertzer 1991, 89.
52 Hobsbawm 1983, 2.
392 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

to the Assyrian versions of the akītu-festival and the tākultu-ritual in particular,

as they developed in Assyria during the late Sargonid period. In Assyria, these
state rituals demanded not only the physical presence of the king, as they did
in Babylonia, but also the king’s active participation in his role as chief šangû
of the god Aššur.
Assyrian state rituals demonstrate the capacity of Assyrian scholarly ex-
perts to evoke the spatial dimensions of the empire and to implement a sacred
topography that includes even the most distant regions of the territory con-
trolled by the king. In the composite and varied nature of Assyrian state rituals
these sites constitute a mental topography of the empire that merges with el-
ements of mythology, ancestor worship, and theological visions of divinity.
Taken as a whole, these various strands ultimately delineate the Assyrian con-
cept of divine and human rulership, performed in tandem by the god Aššur
and the human king.

10.3.2 The Tākultu-ritual

10.3.2.1 Envisioning a Unified Territory: The Development

of the Tākultu-Ritual
The tākultu-ritual is the earliest attested of the major state rituals and is known
from the Old Babylonian period.53 In Babylonia, Sum. gišbun/Akk. tākultu ap-
pears simply to have implied a festive meal or banquet (< akālu, “to eat”), as
is described in Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave when Lugalbanda prepares a
meal for the gods in gratitude for his recovery.54 The adoption of this festival
in northern Mesopotamian tradition, by contrast, adds a strong spatial compo-
nent that binds the periphery to the center. The Sargonid variants of the tākul-
tu-ritual text invoke all the gods of Aššur, the Assyrian heartland, and incorpo-
rated provinces, and offer sacrifices to them in order to elicit their blessings
for the city of Aššur, Assyria, and the Assyrian king. Because of these spatial
implications, tākultu differs from Sum. bur/Akk. naptanu, which is also trans-
lated as “meal” or “ceremonial banquet” in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.55
A protocol (SAA 20 no. 33) and numerous accounts listing the kinds of food
that are to be distributed to the numerous officials and courtiers of the royal
court (SAA 7 nos. 148‒157) suggest that the tākultu-ritual has a different pur-

53 Frankena 1954; Pongratz-Leisten 2007a.

54 ETCSL 1.8.2.1, ll. 371 and 376; Black 2004, 11‒22; for further references see CAD T, 90‒91
s.v. tākultu; add Dalley 2009, no. 75 ll. 9‒10.
55 CAD N/1, 319‒323, s.v. naptanu.
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 393

pose.56 The tākultu-ritual should also be distinguished from the qerītu, likewise
a banquet festival, but one dedicated to only one deity and that could serve as
a synonym for the akītu-festival of the god Aššur, among others.57
The tākultu-ritual is attested in the period of Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE)
on a vase inscription dedicated to the god Dagan. While Šamšī-Adad I’s inscrip-
tion is fragmentary, it seems that the festival was already part of the cult of the
city of Aššur at this point. Furthermore, it was considered so important that
the king deemed it worthy of mention in a dedication to another deity:

[dutu]-ši-d[iškur] Šamšī-Adad
 2 ˹lugal˺ da-[núm] mig[hty] king,
ša-ki-in d[en-líl] governor of [Enlil],
 4 ensi₂ da-š[ur] stewart of Ašš[ur],
na-ra-am dda-g[an] beloved of Dag[an],
 6 mu-uš-te-em-k[i ma-]a-tim pacifier58 of the [la]nd
bi-ri-it i7idigna between the Tigris
 8 ù i7buranun-na and the Euphrates,
ru-ba [ma-r]iki prince of [Mar]i,
10 lugal é-ká[l-la-ti]mki king of Ekal[latu]m,
ša-ki-in š[u-ba-at-de]n-[lí]lki governor of Š[ubat-E]n-[li]l,
12 tu-a-mi a-na [dd]a-gán twin vase for Dagan
ù ša-ku-la-at […] and the tākultum-banquets
14 [x] x da-šur a-n[a …] … Aššur …
(…)
rev.
na-ru-x x x […]59

The tākultu-ritual is attested again in inscriptions from the Middle Assyrian

period onward, beginning with the inscriptions of Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264
BCE), that is, with the first major westward expansions following the end of
Mitannian overlordship. Potsherds recovered from the Aššur temple point to
the ritual’s performance:

Adn. I, RIMA 1, A.0.76.27

(Property) of the [temple of the god Aššur]. Of the tākultu at the beginning of the sover-
eignty of Adad-nīrārī, overseer.

56 See SAA 7 nos. 148‒157.

57 See Sennacherib OIP 2, 143:9, 136:25. For further examples see CAD Q, 240‒41, s.v. qerītu.
58 See AHw 2, 643 s.v. mekû; Šamšī-Adad I uses the same epithet in his inscription on stone
tablets from the Aššur temple, see RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:5‒6.
59 Charpin 1984, 50‒51; RIMA 1, A.0.39.7.
394 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

Adn. I, RIMA 1, A.0.76.28

(Property) of the temple of the god Aššur. Adad-nīrārī, king of Assyria, made (it) at his
third (var. fourth) tākultu.

Similar vessel inscriptions from the reign of Adad-nīrārī I’s son and successor
Shalmaneser I (1263‒1234 BCE) were buried under the floor of the Aššur tem-
ple.60 As meager as the evidence is, it seems that Šamšī-Adad I’s vision of
territorial dominion over Upper Mesopotamia and the subsequent expansionist
ambitions of the Middle Assyrian kings from Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264 BCE) on-
ward correspond with a deliberate attempt to foster territorial control also by
ritual means. The tākultu-ritual is a major component of this cultural strategy
and originates in a time when Aššur retained its role as Assyria’s political cen-
ter.
No written evidence survives from the many centuries that follow. It is
therefore difficult to ascertain whether the tākultu-ritual was practiced continu-
ously in the Assyrian cult throughout the Neo-Assyrian period. Only in the
Sargonid period – and particularly during the reigns of Sennacherib (704‒681
BCE) and his successors, when Assyria reached its maximum territorial ex-
tent – do written sources again attest to the celebration of the tākultu festival
(SAA 20 nos. 38‒47).61 Although the term tākultu is not explicitly mentioned
in text SAA 20 no. 37, this text, written by Ashurbanipal’s (668‒631/27? BCE)
chief exorcist Kiṣir-Aššur, is likely to be an abbreviated version of the ritual.
Several other texts survive from the reigns of Ashurbanipal 62 and Aššur-eṭel-
ilāni (627‒625? BCE),63 stemming from Nineveh,64 Aššur,65 and Sultantepe.66
The festival, consequently, must have been celebrated on several occasions
during the reign of a single king or, if celebrated solely at his coronation, may
have been celebrated in numerous cities simultaneously or have warranted
study in multiple places.
In the copy of the tākultu festival performed for Sennacherib (SAA 20
no. 38), the ritual begins with an invocation of the gods of the Aššur temple
and continues with the gods of other major temples in Aššur before proceeding
to invoke the gods of Nineveh. Subsequently, the text returns to the gods of

60 RIMA 1, A.0.77.25‒27.
61 Porter 1997a, 233 with fn. 38.
62 SAA 20 nos. 40‒41.
63 SAA 20 nos. 42‒44.
64 SAA 20 nos. 40; 46.
65 No. 37 – for Ashurbanipal?; SAA 20 no. 41 dupl. to 40 for Ashurbanipal; SAA 20 nos. 42‒
44 for Aššur-eṭel-ilāni.
66 Tākultu festivals – for Sennacherib, SAA 20 no. 38, and for Esarhaddon?, SAA 20 no. 39.
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 395

several temples in Libbi-āli/Aššur before embracing a wider geographical

scope by invoking the gods of the eastern Tigridian region, Esagila and Baby-
lon, and Der. The end of the ritual closes the geographical circle by returning
to Aššur, invoking the names of the Divine Judges in the Aššur temple, and
finally proceeding to Nineveh, invoking the gods of the political capital and
the king’s political residence. This first large section listing the divinities that
are to be invoked by the king or the priest is sporadically interspersed with
brief requests for blessings and with ritual prescriptions. Below follow some
examples:

iv 5′‒16′ [… may hea]ven and earth, the manifest [gods], all the [gods] who dwell in
sanctuaries accept [wit]h you, may they listen [with] you! [Bles]s the city of Aššur, [bles]s
the land of Aššur, [bless] Sennacherib, our [lord]!

and

v 14′‒16′ [The gods] who[s]e names [you in]voke in the morning and in the evening [for
N]ineveh,

Prayers in the ritual beseech blessings for the king:

rev. ii 1′‒6′ Give Sennacherib, our lord, [lo]ng [days, everlasti]ng y[ears], a strong weap-
on, a long [re]ign, and supremacy [ov]er kings! [He w]o [gave] these to his gods – [give
him lo]ng , wide [….].

Sennacherib’s tākultu text ends with a section (rev. V 5 ff.) that is separated
from the previous part by a double ruling. It differs entirely from the preceding
lists in that it offers detailed ritual prescriptions for how to provide for the gods
of Ištar’s temple in Nineveh. The formula to be spoken by the ritual performer
is similar to those spoken during the tākultu, so it is certainly possible that this
is a ritual prescription for a tākultu performed exclusively in Nineveh. It is also
possible that the author of the text chose to go into specific and precise detail
regarding ritual performance because the ritual prescription concerned the Em-
ašmaš, the temple of Ištar of Nineveh. Ištar of Nineveh is known to have played
a central role in empowering the Assyrian ruler in his office and in mediating
between the supreme god Aššur and the king through prophecy, so that the
goddess and the king contributed together to securing the cosmic order. Ištar’s
importance to the crown prince and the king is explicitly stated only in hymns
dating to the time of Ashurbanipal, who claims to have known no father and
mother and to have been descended from the Ištars of Nineveh and Arbela
instead.67 Allusions to Išar’s roles as goddess prophesying on behalf of the king

67 SAA 3 no. 3:10: bīnūt Emašmaš; 13 ul īdi abī u ummī ina burkīd Ištarātīya arbâ anāku. See
also the fictive Dialogue between Nabû and Ashurbanipal, SAA 3 no. 13.
396 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

and as supporter of the king in his political and military activities, however,
are attested as early as the Old Babylonian period.68 Yet it is not until the
Sargonid period that Ištar’s prophecies69 emerge as a central stratagem for as-
serting the legitimacy of irregular succession. In the Götteradressbuch, the Ak-
kadian rendering of the Sumerian ceremonial name of Ištar’s temple in Aššur –
Egišhurankia, which is ‘House which carries the designs of heaven and earth’
(SAA 20 no. 49:171 bītu ša uṣurāt šamê u erṣetim našû) – clearly indicates her
role in revealing the divine plan to the king. This function of Ištar was deemed
so important that her cult was introduced in Babylon, where her temple was
given the same ceremonial name.70 Interestingly, in Ashurbanipals’s tākultu
the section on Ištar and the gods of her temple (SAA 20 no. 40 v 24‒vi 10)
again figures right after the section concerned with Aššur; it also includes a
prayer to Ištar that beseeches her to accept the offering presented to her and
bless the city of Aššur, Assyria, and the king. Accordingly, there appears to
have been a deliberate attempt to single out Aššur not only as Assyria’s reli-
gious metropolis and as the seat of the chief god Aššur, but also as Assyria’s
political capital as the seat of the goddess Ištar.
The importance of the tākultu for the state cult is further apparent in the
fact that surviving colophons reveal that copies were written by or belonged to
either the chief astrologer or the chief exorcist of the king. This is true for
the chief astrologer Issar-šumu-ēreš71 and the chief exorcist Kiṣir-Aššur, who
consulted the kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. Issar-šumu-ēreš was in-
volved in the most important cultic affairs and in other highly sensitive matters
like the ritual of the substitute king and the return of the Marduk statue to
Babylon.72 Beyond his profession as exorcist, the content of Kiṣir-Aššur’s li-
brary bespeaks the literary erudition of its owner and his responsibility for
organizing the cultic affairs of the Aššur temple. Both Issar-šumu-ēreš and
Kiṣir-Aššur would have been very familiar with the conditions of the Aššur
temple, and yet the tākultu text for Ashurbanipal (SAA 20 no. 40),73 written
by Issar-šumu-ēreš, and the Götteradressbuch (SAA 20 no. 49), written by his

68 ARM 26 no. 192:16 and 379 f.; see Chapter 3 in this volume.
69 Parpola, SAA 9.
70 George 1992, 60‒61 Tintir.KI iv 32.
71 Issar-šumu-ēreš, son of Adad-šumu-uṣur, chief exorcist of Esarhaddon, belonged to a fami-
ly of astrologers and exorcists whose genealogy can be traced back to Gabbi-ilāni-ēreš, chief
scholar to King Aššurnaṣirpal II, see Parpola 1983b, XIX chart 3.
72 SAA 10 nos. 1‒38.
73 With regard to the temples of Aššur and Nineveh, this text is a literal copy of the text of
the tākultu for Sennacherib (SAA 20 no. 38) and matches the information given in the text of
his cultic reforms (SAA 20 no. 52).
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 397

contemporary colleague Kiṣir-Aššur, differ in their perception of the divinities

residing in it. Kiṣir-Aššur’s Götteradressbuch provides precise information re-
garding the location of particular divinities’ pedestals; in contrast, Issar-šumu-
ēreš’s tākultu for Ashurbanipal (SAA 20 no. 40), represents a sophisticated and
elaborate scheme of divine agency focusing on Aššur’s action in concordance
with the other gods (discussed below).

Tākultu for Ashurbanipal (no. 40) Götteradressbuch (no. 49)

Aššur-Enlil Aššur
Mašmaš Lord Tiara
Aššur-Adad in front of Aššur-dugul Aššur of Reading
Aššur-Adad in front of Aššur-Conqueror Šerua
Enlil Kippat-māti
Anu window of Tašmētu
Ea-šarru Sîn
Sîn Šamaš
Adad Šulpaamaša
Šamaš Šulpaguna
Ištar three gods of the room
Queen-of-Heaven of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta the Conquerors
Šerua Weapon
Great Gods Axe
Tašmētu Kunuš-kadru
Nusku image of Tiglath-Pileser (total of cella)
Ninurta Ninurta
Kippat-māti Kakka (right side room of portico)
Kippat-māti-image Nusku (left side room of ditto)
Kutatāti Seven Sons-of-Truth (before window
openings of the roof )
Enlil Mullissu
Dagan Mullissu of Reading
Aššur-Tiara Tambaya
Sun-image Šamšaya
Aššur-Lahmus Ulaya (cella of Mullissu)
Aššur-Judges Enlil
Ea-Kittu Dagan
Sîn (and) Šamaš Bēl-labria
Aššur-Conqueror Judges of the Dais
Ea, Kittu and Mīšaru Mīšaru
Dibar, Bēlet-ilī (and) another Bēlet-ilī
Ninurta (and) Aššur Šakkan (total (of gods) in the ‘Pantry’)
Aššur-Šakkan-Tišpak Haya and Kusu (side room on courtyard)
Aššur-Judges Kittu and Tišpak (in courtyard above well)
Lubelim Ea-šarru
Gimagan Damkina
Ilipada Išhara
Couch Qingu
398 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

Tākultu for Ashurbanipal (no. 40) Götteradressbuch (no. 49)

Image-of-the-Sun-of-the-Lands Maliku
Rivers (and) Usumû Ugurtu (total of (gods) in the cella of
Ea-šarru)
Aššur-images Kalkal
Kunuš-kadru Bel-tarbaṣi
Elaborate Door the Šakkans
Images of the cities the Lions
Lamassus the Enpis
Deposed Gods Nēš-ilī-māti
Sons-of-Truth Ninurta of the storehouse (total of
Gatekeepers of Ešarra)
Tišpak-images [DN]. Allatu, Nergal (total of the cella of
Allatu)
Forts gatekeeper of the Šarhat gate
Rivers Siriš in the brewery
Kubus Total of gods in the house of Aššur
Golden Doors
(Break)

[Reconstruction from Sennacherib’s tākultu (no. 38) which partially overlaps with
preceding entries]

Thunderbirds
Nēš-ilī-māti
Mullissu images
Tambaya
Šamšaya
The Enpis
The Aššur-Cherub
The Lahmus
Kalkal
Kalkal-images
Šakkans
Lions
Wild Bulls
Thunderbirds
Ea-šarru (and) Damkina
The gods of Subartu
The mountains and Rivers
Aššur-Judges
Maliku
The Sons-of-Truth
Kittu
Mīšaru
…
Dibar
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 399

[Reconstruction from Sennacherib’s tākultu (no. 38) which partially overlaps with
preceding entries]

Telitu
Bēlet-ilī
The Mouth-and-Tongue
The Bull-Son-of-Šamaš
The Lahmus
The Steps
The emblem
(Break)
Allatu
Bēl-šarru
Daglanu
Siusa
Šerua
Mullissu
Ištar

Many of these gods feature as recipients of stones in the Middle Assyrian coro-
nation ritual, generally even in the same sequence.

10.3.2.2 The Legal Implications of the Tākultu-Ritual

Although the name of the tākultu-ritual suggests a focus on consumption, the
text variants make relatively little reference to the preparation of offerings and
the feeding of the gods. In this regard, the tākultu-ritual differs profoundly
from other Assyrian rituals, which generally provide a detailed guideline for
the quantities, preparation, presentation, and distribution of the meals for the
gods and the personnel involved.74 Sennacherib’s tākultu is an exception: at
the very end, in addition to occasional ritual prescriptions, it dedicates a longer
section to ritual performance. Even in this case, however, the emphasis is on
the strewing of salt rather than on the preparation of food offerings:

38 v 5‒9 When you are to provide for the House of the God (lit. ‘gods’) of Nineveh, when
you are to st[rew] salt, [you say]: “Aššur-Ištar, Sîn, Šam[aš, and Mardu]k, king of the gods,
a[ccept] life!”

This is followed by the purification of Ištar’s temple by means of swinging a

censer in order “to release” it. While incense is placed on the censer, Ištar is

74 See the discussion of the offerings made in the city of Emar by Sallaberger 2012; for the
notion of ritual killing versus sacrifice see Pongratz-Leisten 2007b; for the notion of offering
see Pongratz-Leisten 2012.
400 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

invoked and requested to accept the offering and to listen. Salt is strewed on
bread and a glass vessel; the same request is made to the gods of Elam, among
them the goddess Narudi, who is the earliest attested Elamite divinity. Elamite
tradition ultimately ceases to refer to Narudi,75 but Akkadian sources continue
to list her together with astral divinities, such as the Sebetti (Šurpu viii 27) and
other stars (Šurpu ii 182 f.), as do the tākultu texts (SAA 20 no. 38 ii 35; no. 38
iv 38; iv 58: v 30). Whether attestations of Narudi in invocations represent the
actual survival of this deity in the Assyrian cult or simply a literary reflection
of an earlier cultic situation cannot be stated with certainty. A similar situation
exists with regard to Hurrian divinities (discussed below), some of whom also
survive into the Neo-Assyrian period.76 Other gods who are addressed with the
request to accept and listen are Nikkal and Kidinbirbir (SAA 20 no. 38 v 35‒
36), Nusku and Bēl (SAA 20 no. 38 v 41‒42), Igigi and Anunnaki, and again
Nusku.
The same combination of rites, namely the strewing of salt accompanied
by the request to the gods to “accept life” followed by the purification of the
temple by means of a censer, occurs at the beginning of the Rituals of Šebat
(SAA 20 no. 1:12 ff.; no. 2 15′‒23′). The reports referring to these rituals mention
a combination of hand-water and strewing of salt (SAA 20 no. 9:18‒19), an
offering of plates with salt (SAA 20 no. 9 iii), and an offering of salt along with
the pouring of a libation bowl (SAA 20 no. 9 rev. iii 25′).
In addition to the long lists invoking the gods of the temples of Aššur,
Nineveh, and other cities, the tākultu for Ashurbanipal (SAA 20 no. 40 with
dupl. 41), by contrast, mentions the offering of sheep instead of the strewing
of salt (SAA 20 no. 40 v 14‒15; 21‒23; rev. ii 22′‒254′; v 23′‒24′, vi 15′).
What was the meaning of salt in this ritual context? It appears to entail
more than enhancing the taste of cooked meat, as is attested for the offering
on the 20th of Nisannu for Bēlat-dunāni (SAA 20 no. 15 ii 41‒42). A letter of
Nabû-ušallim (governor of Uruk during the early years of Sennacherib’s reign
and responsible for reporting on the activities of the Arameans to the king)
mentions a rite involving salt that served to bind the tribes into an alliance,
which may illuminate our question:

Anyone who tasted the salt of the tribe of Jakīn (and) from whose mouth you have heard
talk of peace, the king, my lord should uproot them so that the land may be well (again).

This reference is reminiscent of the Mari letters, which refer to the Turrukkeans
having taken salt (MUN₆ ilqû) after their arrival (ARM 4 21:8) – this reference

75 Koch 1999.
76 Pongratz-Leisten 2012.
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 401

could be interpreted in a similar manner as that of the letter quoted above.77

The use of salt appears to have a legal connotation and serves to bring into force
an alliance between the gods and the city of Aššur, Assyria, and the Assyrian
king. In other words, strewing salt and burning incense as preparatory acts for
the offering are intended to establish a context and determine a framework that
has binding implications for all parties. This interpretation finds further support
in the textual variant dating to the reign of Aššur-eṭel-ilāni, which starts with
the appeal to the gods to drink water or wine: [Aššur], drink! Enlil, drink! Anu,
drink! Ea-šarru, drink! Queen of the [Gods], drink! Sîn, drink! Šamaš, drink!
Adad, drink! Ištar, drink! etc. (SAA 20 no. 42: I 1 ff.). This recalls Ištar’s asking
the gods, her fathers and brothers, to drink water on the occasion of the Meal
of the Covenant. In that case, her prophetic message mythologizes the perfor-
mance of the loyalty oath by transposing political action to the divine level.78
Drinking water and eating (bread with) salt are well suited to the meaning
of the lengthy ritual invocations of gods from all over the Assyrian empire as
performed in the tākultu-ritual. In practical terms, seeking the blessing of the
gods involved an attempt to marshal their support and loyalty and thus con-
notes a binding force comparable to that of the symbolic gesture of strewing
salt:

may they accept (the offerings) and listen (to the prayers), may they bless the city of
Aššur, may they bless the land of Assyria, may they bless the king our lord.
The manifest gods – you invoke their names in the morning and in the evening (SAA 20
no. 40 iv 4‒8).

The tākultu-ritual aimed at legally binding the gods spread throughout the em-
pire into a relationship of mutual obligations with Aššur, Assyria, the Assyrian
king, and each other. This purpose was enhanced by the fact that not only dei-
ties but also deified mountains, rivers, and deified regions were requested to
pronounce their blessing. Such divinized cosmic features do not normally ap-
pear in Assyrian rituals. Instead, their inclusion recalls the Old Babylonian treat-
ies from Tell Leilan and Hittite-Hurrian treaties in which divinized geographical
features appear alongside the gods to serve as witnesses for the swearing of
oaths.79 This particular view of nature as a “repository for value”80 that wields
legal authority in its own right is characteristic of the northern Mesopotamian,

77 Streck 2008, 596, against Durand 1987c, 199, and AEM 26/2 493.
78 SAA 9 no. 3.4. For symbolic gestures performed during treaty ceremonies see Charpin 2010,
43‒52.
79 Eidem 1991.
80 Daston and Vidal 2004, 21.
402 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

Hurrian, and West-Semitic traditions.81 As part of Assyrian cultural memory, it

resurfaced in the context of the tākultu-ritual, and one of the lengthiest such
sections occurs in the tākultu for Aššur-eṭel-ilāni (no. 42, r. iii. 3 ff.).
In Sennacherib’s tākultu, the combination of divinized geographical fea-
tures with Tišpak images (SAA 20 no. 38 i. 39 ff.) and the gods of Subartu (SAA
no. 38 i 56‒58), i.e. Hurrian divinities, and with divinities of the eastern Tigridi-
an region (no. 38 iv 1′‒10′) explicitly associates this cultural practice with the
erstwhile Hurrian cultural horizon. Accordingly, adoption of this practice can
be understood as yet another indication of the reinvention of an older tradition.
Such penetration of Hurrian tradition into Assyrian ritual is also apparent in
Ashurbanipal’s tākultu, which has a section that lists the Hurrian divinities of
the Hābūr area (SAA 20 no. 40 ii 38′‒41′)82 whose cult persisted into the Neo-
Assyrian period.
The invocation of the heavenly bodies at the end of Ashurbanipal’s tākultu
(SAA 20 no. 40 vi 15′‒28′) – reminiscent of Assyrian treaties and loyalty oaths –
can be construed as further evidence of the close association between law and
religion. This list of astral bodies is interesting because the tablet on which it
is recorded is said to belong to Issar-šumu-ēreš, Ashurbanipal’s chief astrolo-
ger and advisor. It is difficult to determine whether the inclusion of heavenly
bodies in Ashurbanipal’s tākultu is a product of Issar-šumu-ēreš’s own idiosyn-
cratic choice or whether he intended to invoke these divine stars as further
guarantors of the blessed status of Aššur, Assyria, and the Assyrian king in a
manner similar to the invocation of the heavenly bodies at the beginning of
Esarhaddon’s loyalty oaths (SAA 2 no. 6).

10.3.2.3 The Dynamics of Relational Space

Conceptually, Assyrian rituals endeavored to create a relational space in which
all cities and their panthea would be tied to the imperial center, thereby foster-
ing social bonds on a large spatial scale and envisioning a unified territory
under divine guidance. This recalls Narām-Sîn’s inscription on the Bassetki
Statue,83 in which the Akkadian king similarly creates a sacred topography of
the empire by invoking the gods of the Sumerian cities whose rebellion he had
previously crushed in a military campaign. Instead of referring to the political
elites of the various cities, Narām-Sîn appropriates the patron deities of these
cities and depicts them as active contributors to his military and political suc-

81 See Mander and Durand 1995, 241‒246, on the evidence in Mari.

82 Pongratz-Leisten 2011b.
83 RIME 2, E2.1.4.10; see also Pongratz-Leisten 2014b.
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 403

cess. A similar case can be made for Hammurabi in the Prologue to his Law
Code, in which he portrays himself as the caretaker of the cults of Babylonia
instead of referring to his conquest of the cities of Babylonia.84
Although the tākultu text is a ritual and not a royal inscription, it pursues
the same strategy for mapping the empire’s geographical scope. In contrast to
the Narām-Sîn text and Hammurabi’s prologue, however, the Assyrian mode of
mapping imperial territory draws attention to the Assyrian heartland and its
relationship to the rest of the empire. This relationship is unlike the hierarchy
of the pantheon as laid down in the god lists, which obviously determined
the choice made in Hammurabi’s inscriptions. Ashurbanipal’s tākultu-ritual
(SAA 20 no. 40), for instance, begins by invoking the deities of the Aššur temple
as well as the deities of other temples in the city of Aššur. It continues by invok-
ing the deities of the temples of the Assyrian royal residences Nineveh and
Calah and of the cultic centers of Kurbail, Arbail, and Tua. Subsequently, it
proceeds to list the deities in the region of Kilizi and Bīt-Bēlti and moves west
to the Hābūr area before turning north and listing the divinities of Urartu to-
gether with other established northern Syrian divinities, including Nergal-of-
Hubšalum and Eblaītu (albeit without reference to their cultic centers). The ritu-
al ends with an invocation of the winds, the gods who rule over the camps,
divine weapons, Dahurate, Adad of Rains, Assyrian cities, sanctuaries, fron-
tiers, wastelands, mounds/ruins, the royal throne, the cultic socle, the cella,
and the sanctuary of Assyria, as well as of the mountains, springs, and rivers
of the four directions. This section is followed by a long blessing, which appears
to have stood at the end of the text before Sennacherib’s sack of Babylon. In
Sennacherib’s tākultu (SAA 20 no. 38) the last two columns of the text were
added later, and they list the gods of Marduk’s temple Esagila and of Babylon,
as well as the deities of a nameless city, the city of Der, and yet another uniden-
tified city, before returning to the gods of Nineveh. Ashurbanipal’s tākultu re-
stricts the final list to the gods of Babylon, omitting Der and the other cities
before concluding with Aššur. As already mentioned, the author Issar-šumu-
ēreš replaced these omissions by adding a long list of heavenly bodies, includ-

84 Roth 1997, 76 ff. Hammurabi’s sequence of cities and divinities does not follow geographi-
cal rules. Instead, if one includes the first section describing An and Enlil’s choosing of Ea’s
son Marduk as the patron deity of Babylon, the text reflects the contemporary hierarchy of the
supra-regional pantheon of Babylonia, with Anu, Enlil, Ea, Marduk (city god of Babylon, capi-
tal of Hammurabi’s Babylonia), Sîn (of Ur), Šamaš and Aya (of Sippar and Larsa), Anu and
Ištar (of Uruk), Zababa and Ištar (of Kīš), Erra (of Kutha), Tutu (of Borsippa), Uraš (of Dilbat),
Mami (of Keš), Ištar goddesses (of Zabalam, Akkad, Nineveh, Babylon), Adad (of Karkar), Ea
and Damkina (of Malgium), Dagan (of Mari and Tuttul), Tišpak and Ninazu (of Ešnunna), see
also Groneberg 2004, 245.
404 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

ing the planets. The political-geographical dimensions laid out in the ritual text
reflect the dynamics of a flexible and dynamic imperial border and correspond
to Assyrian political realities.85 In its spatial dynamics, the tākultu banquet
clearly differs from the Assyrian akītu-festival. The tākultu has an unambiguous
centripetal effect,86 drawing divine focus to the imperial center and thereby
enhancing the ideological value of regular deliveries to the Aššur temple.

10.3.2.4 The Theological Vision of the Tākultu-Ritual

The unique way in which the divinities of the Assyrian heartland were con-
ceived in the tākultu-ritual merits further attention. Although the genre of the
god lists did not motivate the tākultu’s sequence of topographical entries, the
geographical mapping of Aššur’s empire in the tākultu-ritual has a theological
underpinning of a different kind. All tākultu text variants begin by listing the
divinities of the Assyrian cities Aššur, Nineveh, Nimrud, and Arbela, effectively
defining the heartland of Assyria proper with Aššur at its very center. The par-
ticular theological expression of these texts cannot, however, be considered
purely pragmatic. The names of the patron deities of these cities and some
other deities are juxtaposed with Aššur, as in Aššur-Ištar, Aššur-Adad, Aššur-
Tiara, Aššur-Lahmus, Aššur-Lahmus, Aššur-Conqueror, and Aššur-Šakkan-Tiš-
pak. Assyria’s heartland is thus expressed theologically, and the patron deities
and other city deities of the region are represented as extensions of the chief
god Aššur. Jan Assmann coined the term hyphenation for this type of divinity
in the context of Egyptian theology,87 which must be understood as a tool of
systematic description, as there was no such thing as hyphenation in writing
in either Egypt or in Mesopotamia. In both cultures the names of the divinities
are written side by side such as in dAššur-dEnlil or Horus-Re. As a theological
strategy, the juxtaposition of divine names does not imply the same sort of
identification as it does in the case of the translatio Graeca. Instead, the second
divine element defines a quality or particular manifestation of the divinity.
In Assyria, the concept of hyphenation is first apparent during the reign of
the Middle Assyrian king Tukultī-Ninurta I, under whom the name Aššur-Enlil
was introduced in an effort to consolidate Aššur’s rank as supreme deity while
simultaneously demoting the former Sumero-Babylonian chief god Enlil to a
secondary position. Because Enlil epitomized the concept of rulership, called

85 Liverani 2001, 29.

86 On the spatial dynamics of festivals in creating a cultic topography see Pongratz-Leisten
1994 and 1997.
87 Assmann 2004.
 The Assyrian State Rituals of the Sargonid Period 405

Illilūtu, the newly introduced hyphenated name Aššur-Enlil qualified Aššur as

the supreme god of Assyria. Excluding the case of Aššur-Enlil, however, hy-
phenation does not signify that Aššur assumes the qualities of other deities.88
On the contrary, the theological intention in such cases is to define juxtaposed
divinities as extensions of Aššur’s agency and thereby to concretize and broad-
en his scope of action.89 Hyphenation in the Assyrian cultic context of the tākul-
tu-ritual should thus be understood as a sophisticated and typically Assyrian
variation on the invocation of a divinity, directed at expressing its particular
form of agency. The expression of agency in the invocations performed during
the tākultu-ritual – such as in Aššur-Adad, signaling “Aššur-acting-as-the-
storm-god-Adad,” Aššur-Ninurta, signaling “Aššur-acting-as-the-warrior-deity-
Ninurta,” and Aššur-Enlil signaling “Aššur-acting-as-the-supreme-god-Enlil” –
explains the tākultu-ritual’s deviation from the list of divinities presented in
the Aššur Directory. The second element in the hyphenated name represents the
modifying function defining a particular feature of Aššur’s agency. Hyphena-
tion should thus be understood as a variation of the theological “summodeism”
found in hymns of the first millennium BCE, particularly those addressed to
Marduk and Ninurta concerned with broadening the scope of divine agency.90
According to Mark Smith, summodeism is a form of theism in which “deities
are regarded as aspects or functions of a chief god, with political power often
key to its expression.”91 Smith regards summodeism as a theological response
to the growth of empires, which supplants the notion of divine translatability
that is characteristic of the era of a multiplicity of powers in the ancient Near
East during the second millennium BCE.
As is clear from the Sumero-Babylonian case, the supra-regional pantheon
developed from an amorphous mass of divinities into an integrated whole and
was structured after socially familiar patterns such as the family, the royal
court and its retinue, and incipient bureaucracy to form a coherent system of
action. Polytheism reflects this kind of coherent system of action (Handlungs-
system) in which every divinity contributes according to their skill-set to guar-
antee the functioning of the cosmic order; this system is in continuous flux,
reflecting changing historical conditions. In the summodeism of the god lists
or hymns of the first millennium BCE, the accumulation of various roles, func-
tions, and qualities in one deity marks the developing consolidation of divine

88 This suggestion was made by Parpola, SAA 9, p. LXXXI, fn. 13.

89 Pongratz-Leisten 2011a; similarly Parpola 2000, 166 who classifies the Assyrian gods other
than Aššur as hypostatized powers and attributes.
90 Smith 2008, 170 ff.
91 Smith 2008, 169.
406 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

power in one divine agency. The following oft quoted passage from a first mil-
lennium god list must suffice to illustrate the case:

Uraš (is) Marduk of planting

Lugalidda (is) Marduk of the abyss
Ninurta (is) Marduk of the pickaxe
Nergal (is) Marduk of battle
Zababa (is) Marduk of warfare
Enlil (is) Marduk of lordship and consultations
Nabû (is) Marduk of accounting
Sîn (is) Marduk who lights up the night
Šamaš (is) Marduk of justice
Adad (is) Marduk of rain
Tišpak (is) Marduk of troops
Great Anu (is) Marduk …
Šuqamuna (is) Marduk of the container
[ ] (is) Marduk of everything.92

By contrast, the political and cultic realities of Aššur, Nineveh, Arbail, and
Nimrud – the Assyrian heartland – are expressed by the various invocations
of Aššur in Nineveh, among them Aššur-Aššur as the carrier of Assyrian identi-
ty, Aššur-Enlil to index his rank of supreme deity, and Aššur-Ištar representing
the mediation of Aššur’s divine command. In Assyria, hyphenation represents
a sophisticated variant of the summodeism elaborated by Assyrian scholars in
an attempt to combine theology with the spatial dimension of political reali-
ties. The invocation of the various aspects of Aššur’s agency in the tākultu-
ritual combines an emphasis on the space represented by the gods of the vari-
ous cities of the Assyrian empire with the notion of divine agency as an inte-
grated and coherent scheme in which the god Aššur constitutes the overarch-
ing and binding principle. Invoking Aššur with this kind of hyphenation in the
temples of Aššur, Nineveh, Arbail, and Nimrud thus establishes the unlimited
potential of Aššur’s agency and its ability to absorb other gods as extensions
of his body and his scope of action. The implied conceptualization of the gods
as a fundamental unity comprising complementary and interdependent parts
functioning like a single body is further apparent in expressions like “Aššur and
the great gods,” which does not grant the other gods with identities separate
of that of Aššur. As discussed by Simo Parpola,93 religious expressions of this
kind reflect the political relationships that tie the king to his governors and
demonstrate the deep interconnectedness of power structures, political ideolo-
gy, and religion.

92 CT 24 50 with translation from Lambert 1975, 198; Smith 2008, 171‒172.

93 Parpola 2000, 168 n. 7.
 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabat ̣u, Addaru and Nisannu 407

The tākultu-ritual’s centripetal dynamic rests exclusively on the invocation

of the gods of the empire. This invocation is reminiscent of the invocation of
the divinities of the respective treaty partners as witnesses to oath swearing in
international treaties, which is preferred to the physical participation of dele-
gations, envoys, or divinities sent as representatives from the periphery to the
center. With its long lists of north Syrian, Hurrian, Urartian, and Elamite divini-
ties, the tākultu-ritual demonstrates the authors’ deep engagement with textual
and cultic traditions, turning the tākultu-ritual into a deeply intellectual experi-
ence. The tākultu-ritual is not concerned with fostering a common identity for
the peoples represented by the divinities of the various cities. It lacks any tan-
gible sensory experience, which is generally associated with cultic perfor-
mance as a means of creating and fostering a community.94
Instead, as a scholastic ritual, the tākultu constructs Assyrian identity by
mapping Aššur’s agency onto a mental topography of the Assyrian heartland
by means of hyphenated names, in the process drawing divine agency from
the conquered regions of the empire into the imperial center through the invo-
cation of the names of their local divinities. Beyond the offerings made to the
gods, the only other physical materialization of divine agency is represented
in language in the form of the blessing that the gods are to speak in favor of
the city of Aššur, Assyria, and the king. By replacing the god Aššur in the
original trinity of god-city-land with the figure of the king, the blessing heralds
the king’s function as the human agent and extended arm of the god Aššur
(mutîr ṭēm A[N.Š]ÁR), as stated in the Tablet of Destines from the time of Sen-
nacherib.95

10.4 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabaṭu, Addaru and

Nisannu
Another important ritual complex in the city of Aššur was the large festive
cycle that began in the eleventh month, Šabaṭu, and ended with the akītu-
festival in the first month of the year, Nisannu. This ritual complex, construct-
ed out of various major cultic ceremonies, demonstrates how Assyrian scholars
reshaped and reinvented rituals in the Sargonid period by linking the royal
ancestor cult with the king’s re-investiture and the akītu-festival to define the
king’s role in the cosmic scheme. The ritual complex of the month Šabaṭu ap-

94 For the creation of such communities by means of pilgrimage see for instance the various
essays assembled in Elsner and Rutherford 2005.
95 George 1986, 134 K 6177+8869 Text B 13.
408 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

pears to have been introduced by Aššurnaṣirpal II, who dedicated it to the

warrior god Ninurta. Along with the Ninurta festival celebrated in the month
of Šabaṭu, Aššurnaṣirpal II also established a ritual complex for Ninurta in the
month of Elulu:

I adorned the room of the shrine of the god Ninurta, my lord, with gold and lapis lazuli,
I stationed bronze …. On his right and left, (and) installed wild ferocious dragons of gold
at his throne. I appointed his festivals in the months of Šebat (and) Elul. The name of his
festival in the month Šebat I called ‘Splendor’. I established for them food (and) incense
offerings. I created my royal monument with a likeness of my countenance of red gold
(and) sparkling stones (and) stationed (it) before the god Ninurta, my lord.96

The choice of the months Šabaṭu and Elulu was probably motivated by astral
observations, as in the eleventh month Sirius, the star of Ninurta, “stands ex-
actly in the south at sunset and in the sixth month it stands there at sunrise.”97
In this case, the astral opposition presents an image of symmetry and cosmic
balance, which is also evident in the Hymn to Ninurta as Sirius:98

O greatest Ninurta, warrior god,

vanguard of the Anuna-gods,
commander of the Igigi-gods,
Judge of the universe, who oversees (its) opposition = equilibrium,
Who makes bright darkness and illumines gloom,
Who renders verdicts (pāris purussê) for teeming mankind!

O my splendid lord, who satisfies the needs of the land,

…
Who grasps truth and justice and destroys […],
Indefatigable arrow (šukūdu) that [kills] all enemies,
Great storm, who grasps the leadrope
[of heaven and netherworld],
Judge of verdicts (dayyān purussê), diviner of oracle[s …] (bārû têrēti)
Conflagration that incinerates and burns up the wick[ed ],
Whose name in heaven is “Arrow Star,”
Whose name is greatest among the Igigi-gods,
Among all your gods your divinity is doubled.99
At the rising of the stars your face shines like the sun.
…

96 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30 69‒78.

97 Annus 2002, 135.
98 Burrows 1924.
99 Burrows translates “Fixer of Harmony,” Foster 1996, 634 translates “your divinity is singu-
lar.” Mayer 2005, 54: “in der Gesamheit aller Götter ist deine Gottheit die ungewöhnlichste”.
Both group the reference with CAD Š/1, 403 ff., s.v. šanû B “to change” rather with šanû A “to
do again, to repeat”.
 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabat ̣u, Addaru and Nisannu 409

In this hymn the notion of cosmic balance is apparent in Ninurta’s roles as

judge and warrior, which work to secure civic order and were defined as the
primary duties of the king in Late Assyrian ideology.100 Although in the Šabaṭu
cycle as reconceptualized under Ashurbanipal, Ninurta only appears in proces-
sion on the 10th of Šabaṭu and otherwise plays no major role, everything sug-
gests that in this ritual complex the king emulates Ninurta’s role as warrior
deity and that his installation as king was thought to parallel Ninurta’s investi-
ture as recounted in mythological narratives and exegetical texts like SAA 3
no. 39.101 While not necessarily tied to the coronation ceremony, the Šabaṭu
cycle can be interpreted as re-enacting the king’s investiture and thus as annu-
ally reconfirming the king’s claim to wield legitimate power and authority over
Assyria.
It is in the prescriptive rituals relating to the Šabaṭu Cycle (SAA 20 nos. 1‒
6), the Reports on Rituals Performed by Ashurbanipal in Šebat-Addar 650
(SAA 20 nos. 9‒11), and the Manual for Chanters (SAA 20 no. 12) from the reign
of Ashurbanipal that the rituals of the months Šabaṭu, Addaru, and Nisannu
become recognizable as components of a complex whole centered on human
and divine kingship. Further evidence for the unity of these ritual complexes
comes from a tablet listing the cultic reforms undertaken by Sennacherib (SAA
20 no. 52 and related fragments) recovered from the House of the Exorcists at
Aššur. Together with their scholars, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal went to
great lengths to reorganize the ritual cycle of the city of Aššur and to integrate
the royal office in the overarching cosmic scheme. The following observations
build on Stefan Maul’s detailed and comprehensive description of the festive
cycle.102
It must be stressed that both the prescriptive rituals and the ritual reports
have breaks, which makes it difficult to determine the extent to which their
ritual syntax corresponds. Major distinctions are, however, apparent with re-
gard to the days on which certain rituals are performed, cultic locales, some
of the rites themselves, and the sequence of rites. Prescriptive ritual texts sur-
vive for the period between the 18th and 25th of Šabaṭu. The ritual reports, by
contrast, describe rites for the period between the 16th and 20th of Šabaṭu and
for the 3rd, 8th, 9th, and 10th of Addaru. The cultic reform texts refer to the
processions of Aššur and the gods: on the 22nd of Šabaṭu Aššur goes to the bīt
Dagan and on the 23rd of Šabaṭu Aššur’s chariot leaves for the bīt Dagan.

100 Postgate 1974 and Tadmor 1986.

101 See Livingstone 1986, 146‒147; Maul 1999, 211; Annus 2002, 100‒101.
102 Maul 2000. This text listing ritual performances spanning a series of days in these months
was first treated by van Driel 1969, 122‒131 and 196‒197; Menzel 1981, vol. 2, T 32‒40.
410 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

Regarding cultic locales, in the prescriptive rituals performance moves be-

tween the king’s palace, the Aššur temple, and the bīt Dagan (in the Old Pal-
ace). In the ritual reports, by contrast, the bīt Dagan is mentioned only for the
16th of Šabaṭu, while in the cultic reforms (SAA 20 no. 52 rev. ii 36′) it appears
only for the 22nd of Šabaṭu. In the ritual reports, moreover, ritual performance
moves between the king’s palace, the Aššur temple, and the Anu-Adad temple.
The visit to the bīt dDagan/dugani must have been central to the beginning
of the festive cycle; the ritual prescriptive texts provide a detailed description
of the rites performed during this visit and while the king moved between the
palace and the bīt Dagan. G. van Driel 103 originally suggested that the bīt Da-
gan should be equated with the bīt hurše in the Aššur temple, but this view
was rejected by Brigitte Menzel, who thought it was in the Old Palace, before
Karlheinz Deller again identified the bīt Dagan with the slaughterhouse or
kitchen in the Aššur temple.104 Because ritual performance centers primarily
on two locations, namely the palace and the Aššur temple, I am inclined to
follow Menzel and locate the bīt Dagan in the Old Palace. There were two pal-
aces in Aššur, the so-called Old Palace and the New Palace. The latter, original-
ly built in the Middle Assyrian period, was still used by Aššurnaṣirpal II before
he built his new palace at Nimrud. Since the ritual refers to the performance
of the kispu-offering in the Aššur temple on the 18th – probably for the ances-
tors – and since six tombs were uncovered in the southeastern part of the Old
Palace, of which three were identified as belonging to Šamšī-Adad V (Gruft II),
Aššur-bēl-kala (Gruft III), and Aššurnaṣirpal II (Gruft V),105 it is likely that
é.gal denotes the Old Palace.
According to several inscriptions found in the area of the Old Palace, the
New Palace, and the Aššur temple, Sennacherib was also buried in Aššur. One
inscription is particularly revealing with regard to the meaning attributed to
the burial place of the Assyrian kings as a place of social identification and
consolidation of the dynastic line:

(This is) the palace of repose (bīt tapšuhti),

the dwelling for eternity (šubat dārât),
house of the dynasty (bīt kimti) which is firmly grounded,
of Sennacherib, great king,
strong king, king of the universe, king of Assyria.106

103 Van Driel 1969, 40‒43.

104 Deller 1985, 362‒364.
105 Haller 1954, 170‒181; Lundström 2003 and 2009; Pedde 2011; Lundström and Pedde 2008,
145.
106 OIP 2, 151 no. 13; for a slightly different version see no. 14. On Sennacherib’s tomb see
most recently Frahm 1997, 181 f.
 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabat ̣u, Addaru and Nisannu 411

The assumption that the bīt Dagan was located in the Old Palace, is further
corroborated by two Middle Assyrian administrative documents that mention
the offering of red wool for the weapons of some deceased Middle Assyrian
kings107 on the occasion of the “return of the god” (tuʾāri ili); this offering took
place in the palace (é.gal). According to the observations of Peter Miglus, the
burials of the late Middle Assyrian king Aššur-bēl-kala and the Neo-Assyrian
kings were situated exactly where the Old Palace of the Old Assyrian period
had its throne room or major hall. Such architectural organization evokes the
traditions known from Amorite Mari and Tuttul, which equally combined royal
residence and royal burials, and links the practice of the Assyrian ancestor cult
with the Syrian cultural horizon.108
Further links with Syrian tradition can be observed in the kispu-offering
performed in the Aššur temple to honor the royal ancestors; it is reminiscent
of the Amorite tradition attested in the text known as the Genealogy of Hammu-
rabi. In this text the living king, whether at the moment of his investiture or
as part of an annual ritual, honors the ancestors and members of the Babyloni-
an royal dynasty by reciting the list of the ancestral names and performing the
offering for the dead. It is worth noting in this context that two of the five
versions of the Neo-Assyrian King List were written on tablets whose format
resembles amulet tablets,109 suggesting that they were used within a cultic
context and possibly also read during the kispu ceremony. Genealogies are eas-
ily manipulated,110 and both the Genealogy of Hammurabi and the Assyrian
King List primarily serve to promote the view that the institution of kingship
was continuous and unbroken, thereby contributing to the reinvention of tradi-
tion.111 The kispu ceremony generally consisted of a communal meal with the
ancestors, which not only served the needs of the dead but also consolidated
the social position of the head of the family by regularly reaffirming social
hierarchies. In the case of the king, the successfully performed kispu ceremony
was an additional form of cognitive reliability112 that reinforced his place with-
in the dynastic line of the kings of Aššur.
Communication with the ancestors by means of the kispu-offering must
have had a transformative effect, as when the king enters the bīt Dagan he

107 MARV IV 138 and MARV 4 140, Erīšum I, Aššur-nādin-ahhē, Shalmaneser I, Tukultī-
Ninurta I, Ninurta-apil-ekur, see Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012b.
108 Miglus 2003, 262‒267; Lundström and Pedde 2009; Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012, 47. One can
now further add the archaeological evidence of Middle Bronze Age Qatna.
109 Version B is from Khorsabad and C is probably from Aššur, Yamada 1994, 37.
110 Michalowski 1984, 245; Wilson 1977.
111 Pongratz-Leisten 1997.
112 Platt 2011, 238.
412 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

wears the Tiara of Aššur (Bēl-Agû) on his head. Aššur’s tiara as a symbol of
Assyrian world dominion represents still another central aspect of the rites
performed during the month of Šabaṭu. Only the ritual prescriptions allude
to the governor, queen, crown prince, and grand treasurer providing for the
wedding ceremony of Mullissu (quršu ša dMullissu, see SAA 20 no. 1 r. 18; no. 2
ii 8′, iii 35′); this wedding ceremony is not mentioned in the ritual reports of
Ashurbanipal. In a theogamy the goddess generally intercedes with her consort
on behalf of the king to secure divine blessing for his rulership,113 so the inclu-
sion of Mullissu’s wedding ceremony (quršu) perfectly suits the purpose of this
ritual component, which aims at celebrating and reaffirming the king’s ruler-
ship through divine consent. A large part of SAA 20 no. 1 is broken, but the
preserved part refers to rites performed on the 20th of Šabaṭu. The king enters
the bīt Dagan wearing Bēl-Agû on his head, while the gods accompanying him
are identified as Aššur, Mullissu, Bēl-Agû, Sîn, Šamaš, Anu, Adad, Nergal, the
Chariots-of-War, Šerua, Kippat-māti, Kakka, Mandanu, the Conquerors (Kāši-
dūti), the deified weapon (dKakku), and the deified Axe (dKalappu). These gods
largely overlap with the list of gods walking in procession and driving on the
chariot to the akītu-house in Nisannu (compare SAA 20 no. 1: r. 20‒24 and
no. 54). The symbolic meaning of this configuration of deities walking in pro-
cession suggests that this ritual component connoted the symbolic re-enact-
ment of Aššur-Ninurta’s/the king’s victorious battle against the forces of chaos.
Along with some other divinities, the same gods are mentioned in the text
describing the image of Aššur’s battle against Tiāmat on Sennacherib’s bronze
door for the akītu-house, in which it is stated explicitly that the divine weapon
and the Kāšidūti travel together with Aššur on his chariot.114 Not only the pro-
cession itself but also the group of gods accompanying Aššur communicated a
standardized narrative that applied to the supreme god of the imperial panthe-
on, Aššur in the case of Assyria and Marduk in the case of Babylonia; the
outcome of this standardized narrative was common knowledge among the
participants. The procession, consequently, functioned as an effective means
for materializing the combat myth and reinforcing imperial theology.
On the 23rd of Šabaṭu the king performed an Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual
that reaffirmed his status. On the 24th of Šabaṭu the king went to the Aššur
temple and illuminated the face of the gods He performed offerings before Aš-
šur and Mullissu and provided for the gods of the Aššur temple in the bīt Da-
gan. In addition, the king accompanied Aššur to the bīt Dagan, performed fur-
ther offerings, and then returned to the palace (SAA 20 no. 3).

113 Pongratz-Leisten 2008.

114 See most recently Frahm 1997, T 183 (pp. 261‒264).
 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabat ̣u, Addaru and Nisannu 413

The ritual reports appear to describe a different syntax for the ritual cycle.
First of all, they do not mention the kispu-offering in the bīt Dagan and all the
rites centered on Bēl-Agû are moved to the 20th of Šabaṭu and the 3rd and 8th
of Addaru. For the 16th of Šabaṭu (not extant in the prescriptive ritual texts),
the ritual reports record the entry of Šerua, Kippat-māti, and Tašmētu into the
bīt Dagan. It is possible that this visit of the female goddesses implies their
role as mediators who intercede with the ancestors on behalf of the king. On
the following day the king entered the city (SAA 20 no. 10), and on the 18th of
Šabaṭu he made offerings before Aššur and Bēl-Agû in the Aššur temple as well
as before Aššur of the Reading, Kippat-māti, and possibly some other divinities
whose names are not preserved (SAA 20 no. 10: 11‒24). Further offerings took
place before Ninurta and Nusku, the gods of the Aššur temple, the Conquerors
(Kāšidūti), the Golden Chariot (of Aššur), and Bēl and Nabû. On the 19th of
Šabaṭu further offerings took place before Aššur and Mullissu and the priests
circumambulated the Aššur temple and all the other temples. On this day, the
king accompanied the goddesses Šerua, Kippat-māti, and Tašmētu into the
Anu temple. Since this visit took place on the day before the king was to wear
Bēl-Agû on his head, it is tempting to assume that it implied a negotiation of
the king’s legitimate status in the presence of the divine assembly of Anu in
which the female goddesses interceded on the king’s behalf.
On the 20th of Šabaṭu the king escorted Aššur and his consort Mullissu
together with Bēl-Agû to the dais of destinies (parak šīmāte). While no com-
mentaries on this particular rite are extant, this gathering of Aššur, Mullissu,
and Bēl-Agû may be considered the Assyrian version of the Babylonian assem-
bly of the gods who acknowledge and confirm the king in his office at their first
gathering during the Babylonian akītu on the 8th of Nisannu. The gathering of
Aššur, Mullissu, and Bēl-Agû is in all likelihood to be distinguished from the
assembly of all the gods (puhur ilāni) that took place on the 3rd of Addaru.
The arrival of the gods at the dais of destinies had a transformative effect
on the king, who wore Aššur’s tiara on his head on the following day – the
22nd of Šabaṭu – and drove to the bīt Dagan on a chariot. It is not clear whether
it was only at this point that king performed the kispu to his royal ancestors,
as no mention of this is made in the surviving texts. A transformation in the
king’s status must nevertheless have occurred, as on that day he was crowned
with Aššur’s tiara. When it was paraded in procession, Aššur’s tiara communi-
cated the legitimate claim to power of its bearer. The king’s reconfirmation as
legitimate occupant of the throne entitled him to undergo the mouth washing-
ritual (ka.luh.ù.da) on the 23rd of Šabaṭu, itself designed to turn him into the
body politic and holder of the royal office.115 The mouth washing-ritual was

115 On the body politic of the Assyrian king see the discussion in Chapter Six.
414 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

generally intended to transform the statue of either the king or the gods into
an agent on their behalf. In this case, however, the ritual serves as a potent
means of ritual transformation whereby the king becomes an official body poli-
tic and so reaffirms his own power, status, and authority as the god Aššur’s
agent.
As is discussed in Chapter Six, the king’s role as Aššur’s agent consisted of
the emulation of Ninurta’s role as steward. This role included the executive
aspect of power, particularly the obligation to extend the borders of the Assyri-
an empire in order to align them with the boundaries of the known universe,
a duty also communicated in the Assyrian coronation ritual. As such, it is per-
haps unsurprising that a cultic commentary associates the 23rd of Šabaṭu with
battle.116 It is not necessary to assume, however, that the king performed an
actual battle ritual to demonstrate his abilities as war lord or hunter, as de-
scribed in ritual no. 18.117 As noted in the commentary, the implication of the
king’s ritual performance during the months of Šabaṭu and Addaru was his
rightful and legitimate participation in the establishment of cosmic order by
assuming the warrior aspect of Aššur, i.e. Aššur-Ninurta. Seeing the two war
chariots and Aššur’s deified weapons, dkakku and dkalapu, during the proces-
sion of the gods accompanying Aššur to the bīt Dagan – in addition to seeing
the head of the sea-monster (mentioned in no. 52 v 47′‒48′) – sufficed to mate-
rialize and evoke the cosmic battle in the minds of both the participants and
the observers and functioned to trigger the memory of the narrative of Marduk/
Aššur fighting Tiāmat as recounted in Enūma Eliš. The king’s assumption of
Aššur’s crown on the 24th of Šabaṭu provided a similar cue, as is revealed by
the same commentary, which identifies that day as the day on which the king
wears the crown of Aššur.118 The crown as icon communicates the outcome of
the combat myth’s standardized narrative in a condensed form to the viewer,
in which Aššur-Ninurta or Marduk becomes king of the universe after fighting
a victorious battle.119 As a “signature element”120 of divine rulership, Aššur’s
crown does not simply announce that the king’s rulership is divinely sanc-
tioned but transforms the king into an extension of Aššur’s agency, merging
divine and human kingship in a single unitary intentionality. On the 26th of
Šabaṭu the image of Aššur that had remained in the bīt Dagan throughout the
preceding four days returned to the Aššur temple.

116 SAA 3 no. 40:10.

117 Pace Maul 2000, 395.
118 This compares to the visual cues constituting meaning in art as discussed by Ross 2005.
119 For icons and portable objects facilitating the communication during ritual performance
see De Marrais, Castillo, and Earle 1996, 18.
120 Winter 2009, 258.
 The Ritual Cycle of the Months of Šabat ̣u, Addaru and Nisannu 415

At some point between the 23rd of Šabaṭu and the 3rd of Addaru the king
opened the vat, a rite that the cultic commentary SAA 3 no. 37: 18′ explains as
Marduk defeating Tiāmat with his penis.
According to the ritual reports, the bīt Dagan and the Aššur temple func-
tioned as the main cultic localities in the month of Addaru. The festive cycle
continued on the 1st of Addaru with offerings to Aššur, and on the following
day to Mullissu. On the 3rd of Addaru the gods again made their way to the bīt
Dagan in a procession in order to assemble (puhur ilāni) and probably to con-
firm divine and earthly rulership.121 The 8th of Addaru represented a pivotal
moment in the festive cycle. After his performance of offerings before Aššur
and Mullissu, the king accompanied both gods to the Anu temple where the
tiara was placed on the socle of Aššur. Like the 24th of Šabaṭu, the 8th of Addaru
is called the “day on which the king wears Aššur’s crown”122 in the cultic com-
mentary. Wearing Aššur’s tiara, the king left the Aššur temple through the Kal-
kal gate, which links the southwestern courtyard with Sennacherib’s newly
built additional courtyard,123 and re-entered the temple through the same
gate – thus moving into the semi-public sphere of the outer courtyard of the
temple. When Esarhaddon finished his renovations to the Aššur temple, he
held a banquet in this courtyard for three days, to which he invited his mag-
nates and his people.124 Regardless of who precisely is meant by “his people,”
the king’s remark reveals that at least part of the population had access to the
outer courtyard of the temple. The king’s leaving and re-entering through the
Kalkal gate must have served the purpose of integrating the public sphere into
the ritual space and thus publicizing the king’s active partaking in the divine
and terrifying splendor radiated by Aššur’s crown. The king’s spatial move-
ment involving semi-public space was reinforced by the incantations “The
crown’s terrifying splendor” and “the Weapon,” recited by the exorcists
(SAA 20 no. 11 r. 4). Both evoke the image of Aššur’s overwhelming splendor
spreading throughout the universe and forcing everyone to submit to his yoke.
Together with Aššur, Šerua, Kippat-māti, Tašmētu, the Axe and Mandanu, the
king went to the Adad temple, stopping at the cella of Anu (SAA 20 no. 11
r. 5 ff) before returning to the Aššur temple on the same day.

121 As noted by Maul 2000, 397 f. this assembly of the gods was already known under Adad-
nīrārī III, see SAA 12 no. 69: 27 ff. Here the rites for Šabatu and intercalary Addaru are called
pandugāni ša šarri. There is no attestation for a pandugani ša šarri, which according to Deller
1985‒86, 47 seems to have been a banquet of a more secular kind, after Adad-nīrārī III.
122 SAA 3 no. 40 rev. 16.
123 Van Driel 1969, 47.
124 RINAP 4 no. 57 vii 26‒30.
416 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

On the 9th of Addaru a ritual took place that seems to have been designed
to add to the materialization of the changed status of the king. The king came
out of the palace and stood in the courtyard, where the priest placed a vat of
vine before him and then placed a peeled pomegranate on a platter of salt.
This pomegranate was then put in the mouth of the cupbearer, who was
brought before the king. The head of the female singers announced the good
news three times before entering the temple of Anu: “Šerua has given birth!”
The king then entered the temple of Adad, lit the censer, and illuminated the
face of the god. The peeled red pomegranate possibly symbolizes the female
blood and the white salt the male semen, thus visualizing the idea of a sexual
reunion before the announcement “Šerua has given birth!” and indicating the
king’s new status.125 By means of the ritual just described, the king’s changed
status was emphasized during Ashurbanipal’s reign at the expense of the no-
tion of the divine couple blessing and legitimizing the king in his office as
effectuated by the wedding ceremony of Mullissu.
On the 10th of Addaru the king set the table and gave gifts to the temple-
enterers.
Overall, it seems that the reforms undertaken during the reign of Ashur-
banipal emphasize the king’s position as agent of the god Aššur – visualized
by the king’s wearing of Aššur’s Tiara – even more strongly than do the pre-
scriptive rituals that probably date to the reign of Sennacherib.

10.5 The Akītu-festival in Aššur

On the 18th of Addaru a further section of the ritual complex ended, beginning
again on the 2nd of Nisannu with the akītu-festival. The Assyrian endeavor to
reformulate older rituals and imbue them with new meaning also applies to
the Assyrian akītu-festival. As with the tākultu-ritual, the earliest evidence for
an Assyrian akītu-festival dates from the period of Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776
BCE), who ordered his son Yasmah-Adad in Mari to send mules and horses for
an akītu-festival in Aššur on the 16th of Addaru.126 There is no other evidence
for such a festival in Aššur until the reign of Sennacherib, who reintroduced
the akītu-festival following his destruction of Babylon in 681 BCE.127 The rein-
corporation of Babylonia into the Assyrian empire did not only result in the
reformulation of Assyrian political ideology. Under Sennacherib, the scholars

125 This suggestion was made to me by my student Anthony Soohoo.

126 ARM 1 50.
127 K 1356: 2‒3; KAH 122: 24 ff.; KAH 117‒119; SVAT 1; ARRIM 3, 5 ff.
 The Akı̄tu-festival in Aššur 417

of the king reinforced and elaborated on the theological discourse centered on

Aššur, the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon. From the reign of Tukultī-Ninur-
ta I onward, Aššur, written AN.ŠÁR (‘universe of the Heaven’), acquired in-
creasing astral dimensions that matched the king’s imperial claim to universal
control.128
Materializing Aššur’s astralization was central to Sennacherib’s reorganiza-
tion of the cult of Aššur and is reflected in the architecture of his temple, as is
discussed in detail below. In this endeavor Sennacherib relied to some extent
on the Babylonian model of the god Marduk, transferring some of the Marduk
theology to the Assyrian god Aššur. Under Sennacherib, Assyrian scholars re-
wrote the Enūma Eliš so that Aššur rather than Marduk now figured as its pro-
tagonist,129 clutching the Tablet of Destinies to his chest.130 Furthermore, Sen-
nacherib institutionalized the annual performance of the akītu-festival, for
which he reshaped Aššur’s cultic topography.131 Sennacherib added the East-
ern Annex to Aššur’s cella in the Aššur temple in order to house the dais of
destinies, where the fates were determined. This architectural undertaking is
described at length in several inscriptions and the required changes to the lay-
out of Aššur’s cella could only be implemented after the permission of the gods
had been obtained by means of extispicy, as the following passage relates:132

In the wisdom which Ea bestowed on me, with the cleverness with which Aššur endowed
me, I took counsel with myself alone, and to open the gate of Ehursaggalkurkurra to the
East instead of the South, my heart moved me. The will of Šamaš and Adad I sought to
learn (by extispicy) and they gave me a firm positive answer; that that door should open
towards the East instead of the South, Šamaš and Adad commanded. On that day, I cut
through its wall and toward the breast of Aššur, my lord, instead of the South, I opened
a new door, and I called its name Gate of Royalty.133

The above passage from one of Sennacherib’s inscriptions demonstrates the

king’s awareness that the adaptation of mythical, theological, and ritual con-
cepts required changes to the existing ground plan of the Aššur temple. This

128 On the interaction of political ideology and religion see Lanfranchi 1995; on the astraliza-
tion and solarization of Aššur see Pongratz-Leisten 2011a, 175 ff.
129 Three copies of the Assyrian version are known KAR 117+118, KAR 173 from Aššur and one
from Nineveh (CT 13 pl. 24 f.); see comments by Frahm 1997, 284 ff.
130 George 1986, K 6177 + 8869 Text B 6: ṭuppi šīmāti … [š]a Aššur šar ilāni qātuššu iṣbatuma
itmuhu [irtuššu].
131 George 1989, 119; Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 60‒64.
132 KAH 122, Stele Eţ 7847, ed. by V. Donbaz and H. Galter, ARRIM 3, 1985, 4‒7, KAH 117, 118,
119, for all these inscriptions see the comments of Frahm 1997, 173 ff.
133 KAH 2 124 10 ff.
418 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

is one of the finest examples in the archaeological record and in textual sour-
ces of the close relationship between ritual and cultic topography. Sennacher-
ib’s extensive reconceptualization of Aššur’s theology and cult is thus evident
in five actions, namely 1) the rewriting of Enūma Eliš to provide the Assyrian
chief god with a history that fostered his position as supreme god, 2) the writ-
ing of Aššur’s name with the logogram AN.ŠÁR, i.e. the name of one of the
primeval gods preceding Marduk/Aššur in Enūma Eliš, 3) the transformation of
the Aššur temple in order to integrate the socle of destinies necessary for the
celebration of the akītu-festival, 4) the building of the akītu-house outside Aš-
šur, and 5) the introduction of the akītu-festival itself.134 The composition of
the Marduk Ordeal, which explicitly places Aššur/AN.ŠÁR as prior to the crea-
tion of heaven and earth while Marduk emerges only after city and temple had
come into being,135 served to establish Aššur’s transcendent character, appar-
ent also in his epithet “the one who creates himself” (bānû ramānīšu).136 Sever-
al new cultic texts were concerned with the performance of the akītu-festival
and the hierarchy of the gods who marched in procession alongside Aššur.137
In his inscriptions, Sennacherib strives to present his cultic reforms as reli-
giously motivated and embeds them in a new astral-cosmic symbolism. This
astral symbolism applies to his capital Nineveh, the plan of which was said to
be drawn for eternity in the constellations (šiṭir burumme, lit. “writing of the
firmament”).138 It also characterizes the toponymy of the newly annexed court-
yard in Aššur, which represents an astral commentary on the determination
of destinies during the akītu-festival and simultaneously emphasizes Aššur’s
universal rulership (bāb šarrūti “gate of royalty”).139 The external gate in the
southeast of the annexed courtyard (bāb burumme “gate of the firmament”)
and the southeast gate leading into the temple complex called “the door of the
road of Enlil” (bāb harrān šūt dEnlil) reflect the astral aspect of Aššur, who is
said to dwell in the shining firmament in the inscriptions of Sennacherib.140
Aššur’s consort Mullissu is referred to in the name of the “gate of the wagon
star” (bāb mulereqqi). The astronomical manual MUL.APIN associates the muler-
eqqi with the Sumerian goddess Ninlil, the consort of Enlil, who was equated
with Mullissu in the Neo-Assyrian period. As is discussed above, on the twen-

134 Machinist 1984‒85; Frahm 1997, 282‒288.

135 Marduk Ordeal, SAA 3 no. 34:54‒55.
136 Frahm, Sanherib-Inschriften T 183:1.
137 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 115‒132.
138 Frahm, Sanherib-Inschriften, T 4:62; T 10:6‒7.
139 Lanfranchi 1995, 148.
140 Luckenbill, OIP II, 149 l. 5: āšib burūmû ellūti; Frahm, Sanherib-Inschriften, T 183.
 The Akı̄tu-festival in Aššur 419

tieth of Šabaṭu Aššur took his seat on the “socle of destinies” (parak šīmāte,
SAA 20 no. 9 i 23) together with Mullissu and Bēl-Agû. The courtyard name
“courtyard of the row of the stations of the Igigi” (kisal sidir manzāz dIgigi) and
the gate names “gate of the entrance of the Igigi” (bāb nēreb dIgigi) and “gate
of the prostrating Igigi” (bāb kamṣū dIgigi) refer to the great gods’ attendance
during Aššur’s procession to the akītu-house and, according to Enūma Eliš, to
the acclamation of Marduk/Aššur as king of the gods.
As it was celebrated in Babylonia, the akītu-festival originally served to
visualize and commemorate the victory of the chief god Marduk over the forces
of chaos. Marduk’s victory resulted in the creation of the cosmos and his un-
contested rise to the position of chief god of the Babylonian pantheon. The text
was rewritten with Aššur replacing Marduk as the chief protagonist and the
ritual, in addition, provided the perfect foil for the king who, while accompany-
ing the chief god in his cosmic role as defender of the civilized world against
the forces of chaos, annually reconsolidated his own position and concomi-
tantly stabilized and consolidated the existing social and civic order. Cultic
performance thus established a timeless continuity between the mythic past
and the present, and history was, in a sense, abolished.
As is discussed above, similar mythic concepts are articulated in the festive
cycle of Aššur; the Assyrians, however, used the akītu-ritual to legitimize
“changed political arrangements.”141 Esarhaddon chose the akītu-festival as the
moment for the performance of the loyalty oath on behalf of his younger son
and future king Ashurbanipal, whom Esarhaddon favored at the expense of his
older brother Šamaš-šum-ukīn. The swearing of the oath probably took place
in the Nabû temple in the presence of Marduk and Nabû, as is suggested by a
letter sent to Esarhaddon regarding Ashurbanipal’s appointment as crown
prince and by the ivories found in the so-called throne room of the Nabû tem-
ple that depict the performance of the loyalty oath:142

The scribes of the cities of Nin[eveh], Kilizi, and Arbela (could) ent[er] the treaty; they
have (already) come. (However), those of Aššur [have] not (yet) come. The king, my lord,
[knows] that they are cler[gymen143]. If it pleases the king my lord, let the former, who
have (already) come, enter the treaty; the citizens of Nineveh and Calah would be free
soon (and) could enter (the treaty/loyalty oath) under (the statues of) the gods Bēl and
Nabû on the 8th day (of Nisannu).

141 See Barbara Kowalzig’s discussion of the relationship between myth and ritual in the
Greek context, Kowalzig 2007, 27.
142 SAA 10 no. 6:6 ff., Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 99.
143 Literally “temple-enterers” ([lúērib-bītim]eš).
420 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

In Babylonia, the performance of the akītu-festival extended over a period of

eleven or twelve days. Its climax was the procession of the gods who, after
having assembled on the dais of destinies in Marduk’s temple in Babylon in
order to determine the fate of the king of the gods, left the temple and
proceeded toward the akītu-house located outside the city. The procession
symbolized Marduk’s battle against Tiāmat, as is apparent in the ceremonial
name of the akītu-house, which is “House that binds the sea (Tiāmat)”
(é.(a).ab.ba.ug₅.ga).144
In order to enact the procession according to the Babylonian model in As-
syria, Sennacherib had to build the akītu-house outside of Aššur, an act that
he presents as a restoration of ancient customs.145 There are no surviving As-
syrian ritual texts that describe the procession in detail. The Calendar of Psalms
and Lamentations in the Aššur Temple,146 the tablet of the Cultic Reforms and
Religious Practices at Aššur,147 a text similar to it,148 and a duplicate149 do,
however, list the gods that accompany Aššur into the akītu-house while march-
ing in front or behind his chariot.
The mythological connotations of the procession in Aššur are more or less
identical to those of the procession in Babylonia, the only major difference
being the substitution of Aššur for Marduk as the champion who defeats Tiā-
mat. In contrast to the Babylonian tradition, there is no evidence for the split-
ting of the Assyrian procession into a number of different stages,150 nor is there
any attestation of gods visiting from other cities of the empire in order to attend
the procession, as was envisioned in the centripetal Babylonian model. In-
stead, the spatial focus in the Assyrian procession is on the god Aššur as patron
deity of the city of Aššur and as chief god of Assyria. The procession of the
gods led through the city walls to the outskirts of the city where the festival
house was located, generally at a distance of less than half a mile from the city
itself.151 The festival house for the city of Aššur was newly built by Sennacherib

144 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 75 after A. R. George NABU 1993/43. For other readings of the Su-
merian ceremonial name of the akītu-house see A. Livingstone NABU 1990/87 and Frahm 1997,
224 T 184.
145 Ebeling 1954, no. 1.
146 SAA 20 no. 12 r. 19‒28.
147 SAA 20 no. 52 iv –v 16′.
148 SAA 20 no. 53 i 1′ – ii 31′.
149 SAA 20 no. 54.
150 Pongratz-Leisten 1994, 37‒84.
151 This is true for Aššur and Uruk, where the precise location of the akītu houses has been
identified.
 The Akı̄tu-festival in Aššur 421

despite the fiction that he merely renovated it.152 Because of its location outside
of the city walls, the akītu-house was symbolically associated with the steppe,
the realm of chaos. Although in reality the festival house was located in the
suburbs or in the agricultural belt surrounding the city, any site outside of
the city walls was symbolically associated with the notion of chaos, a point
underscored by the name of the festival house, sometimes called ‘akītu-house
of the steppe’ (bīt akīti ša ṣēri). In the mental mapping of the festival, land
beyond the city walls is not considered part of the territory controlled by the
king and the god. Therefore, the steppe as the realm of chaos functions as the
perfect setting for the battle against Tiāmat,153 since this battle could not take
place in the city itself, which was of course the paradigm of both social and
cosmic order.
This interpretation of the procession as a performative setting for some
kind of “cultic drama” is supported by the Assyrian ritual texts of the akītu-
festival, which mention a monster.154 Instead of performing the battle in mi-
metic representation as known from the Greek model, Assyro-Babylonian tradi-
tion appears to associatively reenact the cosmic battle by assigning symbolic
meaning to ritual gestures and reciting liturgical songs referencing the mythic
event. The god’s victory over Tiāmat and his procession back to his temple in
his city thus symbolize his adventus in the city and serve to visualize and stabi-
lize his supreme position in the divine hierarchy anew, year after year. Accord-
ingly, the procession symbolizes a change in the status of the chief god: by
returning to his temple in the city following his victorious excursion beyond
the city walls, the chief god can legitimately claim his supreme position within
the pantheon.
Like its Babylonian counterpart, the Assyrian akītu-festival appears to have
extended over eleven days. More detailed information is available in only two
texts, one of which belonged to Marduk-kabti-ilāni, chief šangû of Aššur and
offspring of a family of priests in Aššur,155 and the other of which is a text
fragment 156 similar to the Cultic Reforms and Religious Practices at Aššur.157
SAA 20 no. 53 i 16′-ii 30′ begins with a ritual prescription for the 2nd of Nisannu,

152 KAH 122, OIP 2, 135‒139.

153 Lambert 1963, 189.
154 SAA 20 no. 53 ii 28′ and 52 r. v 47‒48. In Babylonia, by contrast, it seems to have been
evoked by means of songs performed by the kurgarru and assinnu-mimes Pongratz-Leisten
1994, 74 ff. For the notion of “drama” in the ancient Near East see Pongratz-Leisten 2013a.
155 SAA 20 no. 15.
156 SAA 20 no. 53.
157 SAA 20 no. 52.
422 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

the day on which the king offers cooked meat before Aššur. Subsequently, the
chariot driver (LÚ.mukīl appāte) carries the god on his chariot, drawn by white
horses, in a ceremonial procession to the akītu-house while a singer intones
several songs. The text is very fragmentary, but it seems that the god Aššur
does not remain in the akītu-house and returns to his own temple in the city
of Aššur. In a very fragmentary section, mention is made of the Ubšukkinakku
and the monster. The respective exegetical comment in the cultic commentary
reads as follows:

SAA 3 no. 37 24′‒28′

[The chariots] which they dispatch, and the ‘third man’ who [puts] the whip in [the king’s]
hand, takes him by the hand, leads him into the presence of the god and shows the whip
to the god and the king, is Nabû, who is sent against Illil and defeats him, whom Nergal
to[ok] by the hand, introduced into Esaggil and showed the weapon in his hand to Mar-
duk, king of the gods, and Zarpanitu, while they kissed and blessed [him].

Here the commentary appears to conflate the combat myth and parricide, or at
least the demotion of an older god. Theogony involving parricide or the demo-
tion of the ancestor gods by a god representing the younger generation is a
mythic stratagem used as an explanatory pattern for the organization of power
and perhaps even for the fact of usurpation. While this stratagem is not indige-
nous to Sumero-Babylonian thought, it does appears to structure the myth of
the Theogony of Dunnu,158 which is linked to the mythology centered on the
Hurrian god Kumarbi.159
The high priest’s tablet (SAA 20 no. 15) appears to have been some kind of
an excerpt tablet combining ritual prescriptions for the 7th and 8th of Nisannu
and for the tākultu-ritual, with the latter listing the same sequence of cities
that is displayed in other tākultu texts, i.e. Nineveh, Aššur, Kilizi, Arbail, Nim-
rud, Tarbiṣu, Kurbail, Tue, Harran, and Nineveh again. The text then covers
days seven and eight of the akītu-festival, noting intriguingly that the ritual
performance could be carried out ‘whether in Nineveh, or in Nimrud, or in an
enemy country’ (SAA 20 no. 15 i. 55′‒56′). This suggests that the king did not
necessarily have to remain in Aššur for the entirety of the akītu-festival. Unfor-
tunately, the beginning of the tablet is destroyed; it does, however, look like
the gods had already entered the akītu-house by the 7th of Nisannu at the latest,
as the first date mentioned in the following is the 8th of Nisannu (SAA 20 no. 15
i 55′), which according to the information gleaned from the cultic commentary

158 CT 46:43; Lambert and Walcot 1965; Jacobsen 1984; Dalley 2000, 278‒281; Hallo 1997.
402‒404.
159 See the myth “Lied vom Königtum im Himmel,” Güterbock 1946; Meriggi 1953.
 The Akı̄tu-festival in Aššur 423

Fig. 56: Stele of Aššurnaṣirpal II, Nimrud (after Orthmann 1975, fig. 197).

SAA 3 no. 37, includes a number of the ritual gestures performed by the king,
which symbolically reflect Marduk’s cosmic battle. From Sennacherib’s de-
scription of Assur’s battle against Tiāmat as depicted on the gate of the akītu-
house, we know that the gods accompanied Aššur into battle in a prescribed
order. Because this battle ultimately entails Marduk’s/Aššur’s ascent to the po-
sition of supreme deity of the Babylonian pantheon and the relegation of both
the older generation of gods (including Anu, Enlil and Ea) and their sons to an
inferior position, the commentaries explain the king’s ritual performance as
mirroring Marduk’s performance of parricide.
An interesting detail in the ritual prescriptions is the reference made to the
pectoral “of the gods” that the king wears around his neck during the ritual
performance. This pectoral appears to be similar to the one Aššurnaṣirpal II
wears on his stele from Nimrud 160 (fig. 56) and on the relief representing him
in front of the sacred tree in the throne room of his palace (fig. 22).161 In both

160 Orthmann 1975, figs. 197 and 198.

161 In contrast to the pectoral that is suspended from the back of Ashurbanipal’s couch in
the Banquet Scene, which consists of “seven rows of barrel-shaped beads,” see Albenda 1977.
424 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

cases the pectoral consists of a row of divine symbols like those generally de-
picted on the Assyrian victory steles, thus conjuring the presence of the most
important deities of the Assyrian pantheon: Sîn, Šamaš, Ištar, Aššur-Enlil-
Anu?, and Adad. The commentary elucidates the pectoral’s protective power in
the following terms: “The king, who wears the jewelry and roasts young virgin
goats, is Marduk, who wearing his armor burnt the sons of Enlil and Ea in fire
(SAA 3 no. 37: 16′‒17′).162
In the ritual text fragment SAA 20 no. 15, the king lights a censer and steps
upon a pedestal, following which a man-woman (lú!.sal) raises the weapon
and shouts “Ebirna! Ebirna!” opposite Ištar (SAA 20 no. 15 i 1′‒5′). Subsequent-
ly the king goes to a spring close to the akītu-house and performs offerings of
sheep and blood before throwing a fish and a crab into the spring and pouring
oil, honey, and wine into it. He then appears before the public swinging a
purification device (SAA 20 no. 15 i 1′‒13′). Only the reference to the spring
corresponds to a section in a cultic commentary – SAA 3 no. 37: 3′‒4′ – that in
fact refers to a well rather than a spring and compares the king’s action with
“[Marduk] who cast a spell against Enlil in the Abyss (Apsû), and consi[gned
him] to the Anunnaki.” The king’s visit to the spring is followed by a visit to
the akītu-house, where he offers salt and sheep before the gods of heaven and
then returns to the palace. Subsequently, the king once again visits the akītu-
house and provides cooked meat. After a broken passage, ritual performance
resumes with further offerings of sheep and cooked meat. Additionally, the
king burns a female goat kid before the gods (SAA 20 no. 15 i 46′), a ritual
gesture that, as mentioned above, is encoded with the mythic meaning of kill-
ing the sons of Enlil and Ea. Creative engagement with mythic knowledge is
further apparent in the interpretation of the ensuing rite, the ‘opening of the
vat,’ as Marduk defeating Tiāmat with his penis (SAA 3 no. 37: 18′). As Simo
Parpola demonstrates, the penis is to be equated with the bow (qaštu) as the
weapon of Ištar:

In Enūma eliš, Marduk fashions a bow, designates it as his weapon (IV 35), and defeats
Tiāmat with it (IV 101); later Anu lifts it up, kisses it, calls it ‘my daughter’, and fixes it
as a constellation in the sky (VI 82‒92). The constellation in question, ‘Bow Star’
(mul.ban), our Canis Maior, rose in Ab (August), a hot month with death and netherworld
connotations (see Abusch, JNES 33, [10974] 260 f), and its equation with Ištar in her de-
structive aspect is well attested (e.g., “Ab, the month of the Bow Star, the heroic daughter
of Sin,’ Streck Asb. pp. 72 ix 9 f and 198 iii 1; ‘Bow Star = Ištar Elammatu, the daughter of

162 It seems that this pectoral has to be distinguished from the “stones” (na₄.meš), which are
listed among the insignia of the king in a purification ritual (discussed in Chapter 9.7) and
treated in detail by Schuster-Brandis 2008, 162 ff.
 The Akı̄tu-festival in Aššur 425

Anu,’ Mul Apin I ii 7 and KAV 218 B I 17). Consequently, the weapon by which Marduk
defeats Tiāmat actually is Ištar, and the fact that in the mystical text SAA 3 37:18 Marduk
defeats Tiāmat with his ‘penis’ (ušaru) proves the existence of the bow = penis association
in contemporary mysticism.163

The king continues with the last rite performed over the defeated animal,
which stands in for the subdued enemy. After performing further libations and
showing himself to the public, the king pours a libation of water, beer, wine,
milk, and blood upon the heads of the animals; he then sprinkles flour and
swings the purification device, places a head before the gods, and libates again
before stepping on a pedestal and being given something to eat (SAA 20 no. 15
ii 10′‒19′). The head in this case probably represents the head of the monster
referred to in the ritual text, so that the ritual of libation over the head itself
represents the concluding cultic act familiar from Assyrian reliefs of the lion
hunt and from battle scenes like those of Shalmaneser III’s (858‒824 BCE)
Black Obelisk, which signal the reestablishment of cosmic order to the gods.164
The text is very fragmentary at this point, but it appears that the king fin-
ishes the libations of the vat. While the king stands on the pedestal a singer
intones “To (Ištar)-Amurrītu,” which, according to the commentary, associates
the king with “Marduk [who] with his bow in his hand cast down Ea, while
Venus was ascendant in front of him” (SAA 3 no. 37: 20′‒22′). The ensuing
sections on the reverse of the tablet pertain to the tākultu-ritual.
As is clear from the above discussion, various mythic stratagems inform
ritual performance and its exegesis in the cultic commentaries. It is only pos-
sible to penetrate the meaning of Assyrian state rituals with a multi-layered
perspective that draws from all the extant mythic narratives dealing with the
battle against chaos and cultic commentaries. On the basis of cultic commen-
tary SAA 3 no. 37, the following ritual gestures can be understood as signaling
various steps in the process of defeating the forces of chaos and securing the
rank of rulership:

a. Wearing jewelry = Marduk wearing his armor (SAA 3 37 16′),

b. Burning/roasting a female = Burning the sons of Enlil and Ea in fire
goat kid (SAA 3 37 17′)
c. Opening the vat in the race = Marduk defeating Tiāmat with his penis
(SAA 3 37: 18′)
d. The king standing on a = Marduk casting down Ea with his bow
pedestal with a heart in his (SAA 3 37:22′)
hand

163 Parpola 1997, XCI fn. 114.

164 Compare Aššurnaṣirpal II’s libation over either the dead bull or lion as represented in his
palace in Calah with Shalmaneser III’s libation over Jehu of Jerusalem.
426 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

e. The tossing of the cake
f. [The chariots] which they
dispatch and the ‘third man’
who places the whip in the
king’s hand …
= Crushing Anu (SAA 3 37:19′) or heart of Ea,
when he pulled it out and […] it with his
hands (SAA 3 37:23′)
= Nabû who is sent against Enlil and defeats
him (SAA 3 37:24′ff.)

The interconnectedness between myth and ritual discussed above transcends

Edmund Leach’s dictum that “myth implies ritual, ritual implies myth, they
are one and the same,”165 a premise adopted by the Assyriologist Alasdair Liv-
ingstone.166 It also transcends the relationship between myth and ritual origi-
nally outlined by representatives of the Myth and Ritual school,167 since my
emphasis is on the notion of myth as plotline and on the process of mythologi-
zation versus myth as a closed narrative, which allows ritual to be flexible in
its adaptation of mythic traditions. As is evident in this chapter, the most im-
portant state rituals revolved around the “political” myth centered on the war-
rior god Ninurta. These rituals annually cemented the institution of kingship
in society and the incumbent king’s occupation of his office. The paradigm of
the combat myth formed the core of the ancient political belief system and
served to explain and justify royal action, but at some point the paradigm of
theomachy – including parricide and the notion of a generational change of
leadership – was incorporated into the prevailing political ideology. Sennach-
erib’s murder might account for this, as it probably engendered ritualized com-
ment and explanation in order to harmonize it with the cosmic order. In myth,
changes at the top of the pantheon took place when Marduk relegated his fa-
ther to the Apsû and replaced Enlil in supreme leadership. State rituals and
commentaries reveal that in their adoption of Babylonian and Hurrian tradition
(see the Kumarbi Cycle), Assyrians deemed it important to include the notion
of parricide in their state rituals as a potential component in the king’s rise to
power, reenacting it on an annual basis. Although the murder of Sennacherib
may have prompted a reworking of ritual performance, it is also interesting to
note that already in the Assyrian coronation ritual the deposed gods (ilū dar-
sūte) in the Aššur temple are listed among the divinities to whom the future
king offers stones as gifts (SAA 20 no. 7 ii 4), evoking the notion of generational
change as a model.

165 Leach 1954, 13 ff.

166 Livingstone 2006, 115 ff.
167 For a good overview of the contributions made by J. Frazer, J. E. Harrison, and S. H. Hook
see R. A. Segal 2002, 1684‒1687; Versnel 1994, 15‒88; Ackermann 2002.
 The Neo-Assyrian Ištar Rituals 427

10.6 The Neo-Assyrian Ištar Rituals

Several of the ritual gestures signaling parricide, theomachy, or the combat
myth feature in rituals centered on the goddess Ištar, who, as already stated,
played an essential role in mediating between the Assyrian ruler and the god
Aššur (SAA 20 no. 16 i 1′‒4′ and rev. iv 8‒34; no. 17 I 7‒8; no. 19).
The Ištar ritual SAA 20 no. 19 is particularly well suited for elucidating how
the reception of Sumero-Babylonian and Hurrian cultural discourse in Assyria
shaped Assyrian royal ideological discourse. Given the available evidence, the
precise implications of this reception are difficult to determine; several points
can nevertheless be made. The Ištar ritual SAA 20 no. 19 took place either in
the Aššur temple or in the Ištar temple, and the first offering was made to
Aššur by the king after he brought Ištar into the temple. The divine participants
who receive offerings are Aššur, Ištar, the Sebetti, probably Kulitta,168 and Lis-
ikutu, though offerings are repeatedly presented to Aššur and Ištar. Human
participants in the ritual include the king, the singer, the šangû-priest, and the
magnates. The section describing the active involvement of the magnates is
broken, but the extant text refers to the singer, who intones: “My feast, my
feast is battle,” establishing an intertextual link with the Assyrian war ritual
which includes Ištar in her hypostasis as Bēlat-dunāni.169 Subsequently, part
of the ritual takes place in the bedroom, where the ṣīpu dish is offered before
Ištar and libations are made; after he performs purification rites with incense,
the king offers blood into the pit (apu) and pours syrup and oil as well as beer
and wine into it.170 When cuts of roast meat arrive, the king pierces the front
part of the neck cut with an iron dagger and feeds it to Lisikutu. The singer
intones, “Let them eat roast, roast, roast meat.” When the song reaches its end,
the king casts the neck cut into the pit. Further purification rites involving the
censer follow, after which the king opens the vat and completes the libations
of the vat, the singer intones a festive Hurrah, and the king and the magnates
wield clappers. As soon as the king finishes his part of the meal, the singer
performs his offices and the šangû performs battle. The francolin (= bird of
Kakka = messenger of Anu) is then brought out and the priest gives water to
Ištar and the king; still more purification rites and libations follow and the
king feeds the foreleg to Lisikutu. The singer intones: “Who opens the house

168 Only dKu-li-[x] is preserved in the text.

169 Menzel 1981, T 82‒83; Deller 1992; May 2012.
170 written a-pi, see Menzel 1981, vol. 2 T 98 ff. no. 45: Reverse i 10′. Note that a divinity Ištar
ša abi is attested in Emar 6/3 373:92′. For the use of sa crificial pit see further Emar 6/3 40′
and 46′. For further bibliography see Feliu 1998.
428 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

of silver?” and then the king throws the foreleg into the pit and pours syrup,
oil, beer, and wine upon it. Finally, the singer fills up the pit and the king
places his foot upon it before leaving for the palace.
Two elements in this ritual are conspicuously alien to the Assyro-Babyloni-
an tradition, namely the pit (apu) at which the purification rites are performed
and the use of blood as part of the purification process. Interestingly, pits are
well-known in Anatolian rituals and blood serves as a typical means of purifi-
cation in Hurrian rituals.171 Other elements requiring explanation are the allu-
sions to the bed of Ištar, which implicitly refer to a sexual relationship between
Ištar and the king, and the involvement of the magnates. Once again the com-
mentary SAA 3 no. 37 provides an exegetical explanation:

9′ [The brazie]r which is lighted in front of Mullissu, and the sheep which they
throw on the brazier and which the fire burns, is Qingu, when he burns in the
fire. (combat myth)
10′‒15′ The torches, which he lights from the brazier, are merciless arrows from the
quiver of Marduk, which are terrible in their shooting off and which, when
they hit, slay (even) the strong; drenched in blood and gore, they rain down
mountains and lands. The gods, his fathers and brothers, and the evil gods,
Anzû and Asakku, were vanquished by them. (theomachy and combat myth
combined)
16′‒17′ The king, who wears his jewelry and roasts young virgin goats, is Marduk, who
wearing his armor bur[ned] the sons of Enlil and Ea in fire. (theomachy)
18′ [The ki]ng, who opens the vat in the race, is Marduk, who [defeat]ed Tiāmat
with his penis. (combat myth)
19 [The ki]ng, who with the high priest tosses the cake, is Marduk (with) Nabû,
[who …] vanquished and crushed Anu (theomachy)
20 The king, who stands on the podium with a [heart] in his hand, while the
singer chants ‘To the Western Goddess’, is Marduk, [who] with his bow in his
hand cast down Ea, while Venus was ascendant in front of him.

How can Ištar’s prominence in the ritual, which evokes battle scenes and
which involves the performance of rites in Ištar’s bedroom, be explained? Al-
though she is characterized as mistress of battle, with the exception of the first
millennium cultic commentaries Ištar’s involvement in theomachy is attested
only once Sumero-Babylonian tradition of the Old Babylonian period and can
probably therefore not be traced back to the influence of Babylonian scholars
in Assyria. Consequently, it is necessary to search for parallels in other cultural
horizons, and it is here that Hurrian tradition again provides a possible solu-
tion since Ištar is one of the key protagonists in the Hurrian Song of Hedammu.

171 Haas 1993.

 The Neo-Assyrian Ištar Rituals 429

This song forms part of a cycle of myths centered on Kumarbi, who represents
the older generation of gods and whose position as king of the gods is threaten-
ed by the younger Teššub.172
The entire cycle of Kumarbi songs is addressed to the Primeval Deities, an
epithet that is sometimes translated as the ‘Former Gods.’173 This corresponds
well with the associations of the dromena and legomena performed in our Neo-
Assyrian ritual, which – as indicated by the cultic commentaries – implicitly
reference the fathers and brothers among the opponents of the younger god
Marduk. The Defeated Gods in the Old Syrian and Hurrian tradition include
Anu, Antu, Enlil, Ninlil, Nara-Napsara, Minki, and Ammunki;174 Anu and Enlil
also figure as defeated gods in the Mesopotamian cultural horizon. While the
notion of the Defeated or Bound Gods is very old and extends back to Sumerian
mythology, it generally includes only rebel gods.175 Only one Sumerian myth
of the Old Babylonian period, known as Enlil and Namzitarra, has a vague
reference to Enlil usurping kingship from Enmešarra. The relevant lines read
as follows:

17 u₄ den-me-šár-ra šeš ad-da-zu lúxkár-da-a

18 nam-den-líl ba-e-de₆-a ud-de₃-en-gin₇ nam /ga\-zu-e-še

17 When Enmešarra, your father’s brother was captured,

18 You carried off kingship saying, ‘As of this day I shall assign destinies.’176

Bilingual versions of this myth have been found in Emar and Ugarit,177 testify-
ing to the possibility of transmission of the trope of theomachy to the north.
Another possibility is that theomachy entered Assyrian cultural discourse by
way of Hurrian tradition, as the theme of theomachy is central to several tales
belonging to the Kumarbi Cycle. Theomachy is apparent in the Assyrian cultic
commentaries discussed above and then only reappears in detailed narrative
form in mythic tales like Enmešarra’s Defeat and The Defeat of Enutila, Enmeš-
arra, and Qingu, which all date to the Late Babylonian period and seem to
revive the Old Babylonian tradition revolving around Enmešarra rather than
Anu, Enlil, and Ea as older members of the pantheon.178 The above attempt to

172 Hoffner 1998, 50‒55.

173 Hoffner 1998, 41.
174 Hoffner 1998, 112.
175 Cooper 1978.
176 For the text and its various translations see Civil 1974‒1977; Cooper 2011; Lambert 1989;
Vanstiphout 1980.
177 See most recently Cohen 2010.
178 For an edition of these texts see Lambert 2013, 281‒298 and 326‒329, along with the re-
spective commentaries.
430 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

locate the ways through which various strands of assorted traditions made
their way into Assyrian cultural discourse is indicative of the artificiality and
fruitlessness of attempting to identify origins when evidence is as scarce as it
is in this case. What is relevant here, however, is that the Assyrian scholars –
in their capacity as agents behind the scene – participated in a shared cultural
discourse, which was centered on the organization of power and on kingship,
and which seems to have been much more prominent in Northern Mesopota-
mia and Anatolia as revealed by its pervasive presence either in mythic narra-
tive or in ritual. Further, the marked presence of parricide and usurpation in
this cultural discourse points to broad similarities in the weltanschauung of
scholars from different regions, including Assyria and the Hurrian-Hittite mi-
lieu.179 While the trope might have originated in Babylonia, it is its elaborate
treatment in Hurrian-Hittite mythology on the one hand and in Assyrian ritual
on the other which to my view links both cultures in their discourse.
Yet another feature suggestive of a shared Hurrian and Assyrian mythic
tradition is the reference made to the bed of Ištar, implying some kind of sexual
performance on her part. Although the trope of the Sacred Marriage180 might
appear to be an obvious explanation, it belongs to the Sumero-Babylonian tra-
dition of the late third to early second millennium BCE and references the close
bond between the Sumerian goddess Inanna and the king. This tradition has
no real counterpart in Assyria. Instead, Ištar’s close relationship with the As-
syrian king was based in her role as wet nurse and nurse to the Assyrian crown
prince and in her function as the voice of Aššur in oracles delivered to the
king. Accordingly, a different trope is likely to underpin Ištar’s sexual role in
the Neo-Assyrian Ištar rituals. The Hurrian Song of Hedammu again comes to
mind, as it is Ištar-Šauška who develops the plan to defeat the sea-monster
Hedammu – created by Kumarbi in his effort to gain rulership – by means of
her seductive charm. In order to seduce Hedammu, Ištar bathes and anoints
herself before walking to the shore in the company of her two maidservants,
Ninatta and Kulitta. Ištar exposes her naked body to Hedammu and, though
the relevant passage is not preserved, succeeds in or helps in killing Hedam-
mu, the opponent of the younger god Teššub.
Last but not least the song “Who opens the house of silver” in the Assyrian
state ritual evokes the Hurrian-Hittite Song of Silver, which is also part of the
Kumarbi Cycle. Here the personified Silver aligns himself with Kumarbi as a
member of the older generation of gods against the storm-god and Ištar-Šauška,
who represent the younger generation. While there is no reason to believe that

179 For an excellent discussion of transmission see Gilan 2004.

180 See most recently Lapinkivi 2004 and Nissinen and Uro 2008.
 The Neo-Assyrian Ištar Rituals 431

Fig. 57: King in Ištar’s bīt nathi (after Sollberger 1974, 238, fig. 1).

the Neo-Assyrian ritual from Aššur represents the reenactment of a Hurrian

myth, the evidence does suggest that Hurrians and Assyrians possibly shared a
mythical tradition that accounts for Ištar’s association with the trope of the De-
feated Gods, an association otherwise alien to Sumero-Babylonian religion.
This Hurrian connection is perhaps confirmed by the use of the term bīt
nathi ‘bedchamber’ in Aššurnaṣirpal I’s (1046‒1033 BCE) epigraph on the White
Obelisk. The term refers to Ištar’s bedchamber in her temple in Nineveh and is
a Hurrian loanword that made its way into the Hittite language and was adopt-
ed in Assyria.181 In the Sargonid period the term bīt nathi is superseded by the
standard bīt majāli, but the image on the White Obelisk representing the king
in the bīt nathi in front of Ištar (fig. 57) and the term itself possibly refer to the
same or at least to similar ritual events.
There are further indications of shared Assyrian and Hurrian cultic tradi-
tions. According to the Nuzi texts, the cultic bīt ēqi building has an equivalent
in the city Ulamme, where it is associated with Bēl-Ulamme.182 One of the Neo-
Assyrian rituals (SAA 20 16) takes place in the bīt ēqi of Aššur and involves an
offering before the standard (duri.gal) that accompanied the king on his mili-
tary campaigns. The ritual prescriptions involve references to the jewelry worn
by the king, the priest’s placement of two Anzû-birds between his (the king’s?)

181 See Chapter 6.4.

182 Deller 1976, 44.
432 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

shoulders, litanies recited before Ištar of the bīt ēqi, the “dancing” of the kamā-
nu-cakes signifying the demotion of Anu and Enlil, and the opening of the
vat evoking Marduk’s defeat of Tiāmat. These actions have strong belligerent
overtones and, like the ritual discussed above, demonstrate Ištar’s involvement
in the defeat of chaos.

10.7 The Intermediality of Myth, Ritual,

and Cultic Commentaries
Rites associated with combat myths do not appear in the rituals dating to the
reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I (SAA 20 nos. 24‒27), but are attested repeatedly in
various Sargonid period rituals. This suggests that the ritualization of the Nin-
urta mythology and by extension the Marduk mythology as represented by En-
ūma eliš and the king’s integration in it developed only during the first millen-
nium BCE, possibly only toward the end of the history of the Assyrian empire,
subsequent to Sennacherib’s appropriation of the myth and of the akītu-festival
as celebrated in Babylon. Both the producers of the rituals (the scholars) and
the ritual participants (the king in particular) associated rituals with particular
meanings reflecting a specifically Assyrian perspective. The analysis of ritual
cycle of the months of Šabaṭu, Addaru and Nisannu and of the Ištar ritual has
revealed that while movement between sacred places is involved, often even
in company of deities, ritual performance predominantly focuses on the king
and his cosmic role as conqueror of chaos thus assimilating the role played by
Marduk in the Babylonian akītu-festival or by Ninurta as told in myth. Rather
than performing a cultic drama in the Greek style, however, these ritual ges-
tures, as highlighted by the cultic commentaries, symbolically signaled the
very moment of defeat or killing and the defeat of the elder generation of gods.
Combat myth and parricide were not reenacted in a narrative way. The Assyri-
an ritual is neither “combat drama,” nor “seasonal drama,” nor “sacred mar-
riage ritual” as suggested by former ancient Near Eastern scholarship183 in the
wake of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion,
1890. It did not reenact Aššur’s combat against Tiāmat as depicted on Sennach-
erib’s gate of the akītu-house; rather this role was emulated by the Assyrian
king who by his ritual performance evoked a complexity of various strands of
tradition relating to combat myth and parricide pinpointing the very outcome
of mythic narratives.

183 Pallis 1926; Labat 1939; Frankfort 1948; Gaster 1950.

 The Intermediality of Myth, Ritual, and Cultic Commentaries 433

The performance of state rituals in Assyria went far beyond the establish-
ment of communion with the gods or among the social circle of scholars,
priests, and the king by means of the consumption of a shared meal. In Assyri-
an state rituals, ritual performance focuses on presencing the divine through
engagement with the mythic traditions of the combat myth and theomachy
while circumscribing the king’s role as a member of the divine circle who is
actively engaged in securing the cosmic order through the temporary assump-
tion of the role of the warrior god Marduk or Ninurta. It is in the Sargonid
context that this intermediality184 between myth and ritual was most highly
developed, reenacting not one particular myth, but weaving various mythic
strands and stratagems into a ritual performance that circumscribed the royal
scope of action as preformed in its actual historical dimensions. In other
words, the mythic stratagems that found expression in ritual performance were
informed by and in turn functioned as the model for royal action. As discussed
in earlier sections of this book, this intermediality of myth, ritual, and image
is apparent in common themes and motifs on the one hand and in divergent
or modified emphases and forms of expression on the other. Intermediality of
this kind does not only presuppose profound knowledge of mythic narratives
on the part of both ritual producers and ritual participants, but also technical
precision in ritual performance, the success of which depended on the educa-
tion and deep cultural knowledge of its participants. Moreover, by evoking en-
tire narratives in their outcome through particular ritual gestures, intermediali-
ty served to increase the efficacy and communicability of ritual performance
and to suspend the limits of time and space.185 It is precisely this deep engage-
ment with cultural discourse in its multimediality that must have resulted in
the production of the cultic commentaries. Critically, cultic commentaries not
only elucidate the function and meaning of Assyrian state rituals, but also pro-
vide the modern scholar with an insight into the ancients’ conception of mythic
narratives in general. The ancients conceived of their mythic narratives as ex-
planatory models that were defined by a particular emplotment and served as
a paradigm for historical as well as cultic constellations the king was engaged
in. In ritual these narratives in their iconic outcome were enacted by a particu-

184 The concept of “intermediality” developed from the concept of intertextuality in media
studies in order to describe the interrelatedness or fusion of various media such as text, thea-
ter, dance, music, and film in one work of art and to express the idea that all media exist in
relation to other media (Schröter 2010). Intermediality can involve transposition, combination,
or references creating an “as if” quality by evoking one medium in another medium (Rajewsky
2005).
185 On intermediality see Paech and Schröter 2008; May 2012.
434 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

lar set of actors representing specific social types that interacted in predeter-
mined constellations, thereby allowing both human (the king) and divine ac-
tors to perform the same roles.
Over several millennia, the combat myth was rewritten with the same plot
and the same configuration of types of actors performing the same functions,
namely battling disruptive forces in order to guarantee the functioning of the
cosmic and civic order: names and details could vary, but the narrative struc-
ture always remained essentially the same. Consequently, local particularities
are only evident in the choice of specific mythic actors like Ninurta, Tišpak,
Marduk, and Aššur, all of whom took on the role of hero or warrior-god in the
battle against the forces of chaos. In all cases their opponent, regardless of
individual form or name, whether identified as Anzû, Asakku, Labbu, or Qingu
and Tiāmat, sought to usurp or overturn the divinely established order and,
more concretely, the legitimate line of succession. However, the particular indi-
vidual agents – warrior god and his opponent with their characteristic traits –
were inserted into the original narrative in particular historical settings. It is
in these historical settings that “innovations, modifications, omissions, and
fine recalibrations” were introduced into the “widely known and commonly
accepted version” of the mythic narrative.186 In their historical settings, partic-
ular iterations of mythic narratives functioned as literary devices that justified
the ascent of a certain god to the status of patron deity or to the position of
supreme god. When these local iterations became part of the cultural metadis-
course formulated in the cultic commentaries, the “historical” agents were no
longer important, variation was minimized, and the emphasis was placed on
the general plotline of the combat myth. Moreover, the king assumed the role
of the warrior god in Assyrian state rituals.
The cultic commentaries’ focus on the commonalities of ancient combat
myths as represented by their shared plotline and types of actors allowed them
to engage creatively and imaginatively with the names of particular protago-
nists, enabling a continuous rewriting of narrative tradition without altering the
essential paradigm of the combat myth. Adherence to the combat myth para-
digm informing myth, ritual, image, and historiographical discourse demon-
strates its truth status and sheds light on the assumptions about society, norma-
tive values, and principles of action with which it was imbued by the ancients.
This, in turn, explains the persuasiveness and longevity of the combat myth in
ancient Near Eastern ideologies and in Assyrian ideology in particular.187

186 Lincoln 2012, 55.

187 For this argument I draw on the theoretical treatment of myth and ideology by Bruce
Lincoln 1999 and Christopher Flood 2002.
 The Assyrian Coronation Ritual 435

10.8 The Assyrian Coronation Ritual

In Mesopotamia generally and in Assyria in particular, the mythic concept of
kingship originating in heaven, as related in the Sumerian King List and other
narratives of power, was integral to the ritual performance of the coronation
ritual. This ritual was often not performed in the capital; in cases where the
religious center and the political capital were not one and the same, the cere-
mony invariably took place in the religious center, which in Assyria was Aššur.
This choice can be explained by the fact that the coronation ritual’s objective –
through which the king took symbolic possession of the powers of his office –
was to connect the individual royal person with the divine world and thus to
reassert the link between the king as body politic and the gods. By virtue of its
performance in the religious center, i.e. Aššur, the coronation ritual served to
concretize and materialize the cosmological notion of kingship and, concomi-
tantly, to affirm the intertwinement of the institutions of the palace and the
temple of the supreme god Aššur. The coronation ceremonial, consequently,
stressed the connection between the symbolic function of the individual king
and his relationship with the active center of social and cosmic order represen-
ted by the seat of the chief god and the home of the leading religious elites.188
The performance of the coronation ritual defined the king’s cosmic identity
and authoritatively imposed on him his obligation to act by the command of
and in compliance with the gods. As part of his heroic destiny, the king was
obliged to work toward the conquest and subjugation of the known universe,
which was ultimately considered the domain of the gods. At least within Assyr-
ian culture, the cosmic role of the king as divine warrior explains why his
military and priestly duties were so closely intertwined. As is done by Maurice
Bloch, the theological superstructure of the coronation ritual can be interpret-
ed as a means of legitimating traditional authority.189 Beyond its legitimating
function, however, the Middle Assyrian Coronation Ritual also outlined and
defined the king’s scope of action and shaped and affirmed the particular so-
cio-political organization of the higher echelons of the Assyrian administrative
apparatus. Moreover, the royal commemorative inscriptions reveal that the rit-
ual never lost its semantic components. Throughout Assyrian history kings per-
petually strove to affirm that they had met the requirements of their office and,
consequently, that they corresponded to the image of the ideal king.

188 The Mesopotamian model is thus more complex than the case discussed by Geertz 1977,
151.
189 Bloch 1989.
436 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

Given the cosmic and social importance assigned to kingship in the ancient
Near Eastern Weltanschauung, it is surprising how little evidence survives that
can be directly associated with the coronation ritual. There are, however, a few
texts attested from the second through the first millennium BCE that list the
regalia of the royal office and the host of competences transferred to the king
by the gods in order to enable him to successfully fulfill the duties associated
with his office; these texts shed much light on the social definition and identi-
ty190 of kingship in Mesopotamia and on the cultural meaning of the corona-
tion ritual in particular. In contrast to Early Dynastic Ebla in Syria, where a
ritual for a marriage and coronation ceremony survives,191 the ritual investiture
of the king is not attested in Old Sumerian texts. For the Ur III period and
Isin I period, information about the coronation of the king can only be found
in administrative texts and literary texts such as royal hymns. Administrative
texts from the period of Ibbi-Suen record offerings in Nippur, the seat of the
supreme god Enlil, on the occasion of the king’s reception of the brimmed cap
(aga₃), the most important signifier of rulership. In addition to Enlil in Nippur,
the new ruler had to pay homage to Inanna in Uruk, Nanna in Ur, and Ninhurs-
ag in Nutur.192
The royal hymns of the Ur III kings convey the same message: the corona-
tion of the new king took place in Nippur and not in Ur, their royal residence.
Following the king’s blessing by Enlil, he travelled to other southern cultic
centers, among them Uruk and Ur, in order to receive the blessings of the re-
spective city gods. It should be noted in this regard that in the Ur III hymns
the investiture of the king was sometimes connected to his military achieve-
ments. Akin to the emplotment of Old Babylonian and later myths, Ur III royal
hymns present the act of subduing of the enemy as a prerequisite for the king’s
promotion. Šulgi’s journey to Nippur with the booty collected on his military
campaigns very much resembles Ningirsu’s triumphal entry into Ekur in order
to present his trophies to Enlil and secure the establishment of his cult:

He [=Šulgi] moored the boat at the temple area of Nibru, the temple area Dur-an-ki, at
Enlil’s Kar-geština. He entered before Enlil with the silver and lapis lazuli of the foreign
lands loaded into leather pouches and leather bags, all their heaped-up treasures, and
with the amassed wealth of the foreign lands.193

190 Bourdieu 1991, 120 f.

191 ARET 11, 1 and 2, see Fronzaroli 1993.
192 Sallaberger 1999: 172‒73.
193 Šulgi D ETCSL 2. 4. 2. 04:373‒381.
 The Assyrian Coronation Ritual 437

Enlil in turn decrees a good destiny for Šulgi, guaranteeing him a long-lasting
and successful reign, whereupon the king travels to the major cultic centers of
Sumer to receive the blessings of their patron deities.
An Old Babylonian bilingual text from the reign of Hammurabi inscribed
on a stone statue reveals that the Babylonian mandate for rulership also con-
sisted essentially of winning battles in order to maintain the cosmic and social
order originally established by the gods. In all periods, the gods are said to
bestow the regalia and typical royal characteristics of leadership upon kings
primarily to enable them to succeed in this regard. Although the Old Babyloni-
an text has traditionally been classified as a hymn, Wassermann recently cate-
gorized it as a secondary textualization of “oracular messages by several gods
to Hammurabi, calling him not to wait any longer but to dare and move against
his adversaries.”194

“Enlil gave you a heroic destiny –

as for you, for whom do you wait?
“Sîn gave you leadership –
as for you, for whom do you wait?
“Ninurta gave you an exalted weapon –
as for you, for whom do you wait?
“Inanna gave you battle and strife –
as for you, for whom do you wait?
“Šamaš and Adad are watching over you –
as for you, for whom do you wait?
(gap)
“ … gain the victory, make yourself a hero
In the four world regions,
That your name be invoked forever.
“May the numerous peoples be prayerful and supplicant to you,
“May they recount of you great (poems) of praise!
“May they sound of you exalted adulation!
(gap)
He showed forth his great power to the distant future,
Hammurabi, the great warrior king,
Who struck down his enemies, a deluge in warfare,
Who leveled the land of the foe, who extinguished warfare,
Who suppressed insurrections, who destroyed opponents,
Like figurines of clay,
Who found the way out of numerous difficult crises,
(breaks off)195

194 Wassermann 1992, 13.

195 Foster 2005, 136 f.; Wasserman 1992.
438 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

It is only from the Middle Assyrian period onward that there is concrete evi-
dence for the transmission of the ritual prescription for the coronation ceremo-
ny. The Middle Assyrian coronation ritual is complemented by a coronation
ritual from the late Sargonid period (seventh century BCE)196 that for the most
part records only the hymns to be recited during the ritual. The beginning of
the Middle Assyrian coronation ritual text does not survive, but the remainder
of the text suggests that while the magnates and eunuchs perform a particular
rite in the Aššur temple, a procession including the king sets out from the
palace (mentioned in SAA 20 no. 7 I 33′) – in this case probably the Old Pal-
ace – and proceeds through the Anzû Gate toward the Aššur temple, in this
text referred to as the ‘House of God’:

SAA 20 7 I 22′‒30′
[Having finished] their blessings, [the magnates and the royal eunuchs] place [……] before
Aššur […]. The king [……]. touches the king [……] … The carrier[s pla]ce [the throne of the
king upon their necks] and s[et off] for the House of God (=Aššur temple). They enter the
[House] of God. The priest of Aššur slaps [the king’s face] in their presence and says thus:
“Aššur is king! Aššur is king!” He says so [as far as] the Anzû Gate. [Having r]eached the
Anzû Gate, the king [en]ters the House of God.

Given the general conception in modern scholarship of the Assyrian king as

a despot, the participation of the magnates and royal eunuchs in the ritual
performance and their role in confirming the king in his office is notable, as
they are assigned at least a symbolic part in his enthronement. During his
coronation, the Assyrian king endured humiliation by being slapped in the
face by the šangû, which is comparable to the king’s humiliation in the Babylo-
nian akītu-festival.197 This humiliation was not so much a temporary degrada-
tion in status as in the Babylonian case, but was intended to stress the Assyrian
king’s inferior status vis-à-vis Aššur, i.e. his stewardship, with kingship being
reserved for the supreme god.
Once in the temple, the Assyrian king presents numerous stones to a var-
iety of deities.198 The long lists of stones presented as offerings to the gods are
peculiar to this ritual and are not attested elsewhere in Assyrian rituals on a

196 Livingstone, SAA 3 no. 11. For the text see Chapter 5.4.
197 See most recently Pongratz-Leisten 2014a.
198 Annus 2002, 162 suggests that this offering is reminiscent of the section in Lugal-e in
which Ninurta judges the stones, variously cursing and blessing them while assigning either
good or bad properties to them. The cursing and blessing scene is modeled after judgment in
court, and the stones are evaluated according to their behavior in the battle against Ninurta.
For the stones see also Postgate 1997.
 The Assyrian Coronation Ritual 439

comparable scale.199 Following the offering of stones, the Middle Assyrian ritu-
al continues with prescriptions regarding the crown of Aššur and the weapons
of Ištar-Mullissu as well as the king’s headgear (kulūlu). Subsequently, while
the šangû-priest places the royal headdress on the head of the future king, the
magnates and royal eunuchs recite the following blessing:

SAA 20 7 30 ff.
“May Aššur and [M]ullissu, the owners of your crown, co[v]er you with your crown for a
hundred years!
May your foot be good in the temple and your hands be good [a]t the chest of Aššur, your
God!
May your priest[hood] and that of your sons be pleasing to Aššur. Expand your country
with your just scepter! Expand your country with your just scepter! May Aššur give you
command (qabâ), understanding (šemâ),200 obedience (magīra), justice (kitta)201 and
peace (salīma)!”

By combining the cultic and political actions of the king, this blessing provides
a religious foundation for royal action in general. After blessing the king, the
magnates and courtiers pay homage to him and kiss his feet. The king leaves
the Aššur temple through the courtyard of Nunnamnir and returns to the pal-
ace. Once they have performed a ritual on the rēš hameluhhi, which is part of
the palace, the cultic specialists carry the king first to the terrace (tamlû),
which was built at the latest under Tukultī-Ninurta I,202 and then to the bīt
labbūni located in the northeastern annex and dating to the Middle Assyrian
period, where they place him on the royal throne. Again the magnates and
courtiers pay homage to the king, while he remains seated on the throne. The
courtiers then present gifts to the king, of which the first is taken to the Aššur
temple and placed before Aššur as the revenue of the šangû.
Another key moment in the ritual takes place at this point, involving the
reinstatement under the new king of those who are part of the Assyrian state
apparatus. The grand vizier, the second vizier, and other officials and cultic
personnel divest themselves of the insignia of their office and present them-
selves to the king as individuals bereft of their previous positions. The king
then addresses them with the words, “Everybody may keep his office!” After
paying homage yet again, the officials return to their hierarchically determined
places. A list of stones offered to various gods follows.

199 See SAA 20 no. 7 II 4 for a similar kind of offering.

200 Parpola, SAA 20 no. 7 35 has “attention.”
201 Parpola, SAA 20 no. 7 36 has “truth.”
202 Miglus 1986, 201.
440 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

The subscript of the tablet states that its prescribed offerings were to enter
the temples of the gods of Kār Tukultī-Ninurta; additionally, the tablet states
that the gods of Kār Tukultī-Ninurta dwell in Aššur, thus indicating that the
text must have been written after the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I, when his new
capital had been abandoned and its gods had been returned to Aššur. Follow-
ing a ruling, the text continues to list offerings for gods.
All three blessings or speech acts performed by the king or the magnates
and eunuchs establish and reinforce the reality of the Assyrian organization of
power by means of their perlocutionary force. The first blessing acclaims the
kingship of the god Aššur and implicitly establishes the inferior status of the
Assyrian ruler as his steward. The second blessing acclaims the king in his role
as the chief šangû of Aššur, which, as stated earlier in this book, includes the
king’s role as a warrior who is divinely commanded to expand the borders of
Assyria, thus introducing a cosmological concept of war preceding the creation
of order. As is the case in the rhetoric of the Assyrian royal inscriptions, the
internal logic of this cosmological concept is that only by means of war and
the defeat of the enemy can the king achieve peace and justice. This is also why
Aššur is entreated to bestow eloquence, understanding, obedience, justice, and
peace on the king only after the king is instructed to expand Assyria’s borders.
The third speech act was performed by the king himself, who reinstated the
magnates and eunuchs in their offices, thereby making clear their dependence
on the institution of kingship and their inferior status in relationship to it. No
other text expresses so clearly how the Assyrian state hierarchy and power
structure were ideally conceived: 1) the god Aššur, 2) the king as steward and
šangû of Aššur, 3) the courtiers, and 4) other officials. Indeed, establishing
this hierarchical organization appears to have been the central concern of the
coronation ritual.
The transformational quality of the coronation ritual’s performance is im-
plicit in the annalistic texts of Adad-nīrārī II (911‒891 BCE), which include a
beautiful example of the idea that high rank and status is intrinsically linked
with perfection in outer appearance – a concept that, as we have seen, is also
integral to the Gilgamesh Epic.203 Only the perfect royal body can be turned
into a body politic and be entrusted with kingship by the gods:

The great gods, who take firm decisions, who decree destinies, they properly created me,
Adad-nārārī (II), attentive prince, […], they altered my stature to lordly stature (nabnīti
bēlūti), they rightly made perfect my features (šikin bunnannīya) and filled my lordly body
(zumur bēlūtīya) with wisdom. After the great gods had decreed (my destiny, after) they

203 See Chapter 4.11.

 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship 441

had entrusted to me the scepter for the shepherding of the people, (after) they had raised
me above crowned kings (and) placed on my head the royal splendor (melamme šarrūti),
they made my almighty name greater then (that of) all lords, the important name Adad-
nārārī (II), king of Assyria, they called me. Strong king, king of Assyria, king of the four
quarters, sun of all people, I:204

The various text categories that have appeared in the preceding discussion –
hymn, ritual, and royal inscription – demonstrate that we should not subscribe
to the categorical divide between ritual as practice and discourse as represen-
ted in the theological superstructure. While authorizing social structures and
hierarchies, ritual must evoke the cosmological discourse in order to map the
institution of kingship onto the larger cosmic scheme, which brings us back to
Gumbrechts’ concept of “presencing.”205 The affective force of the coronation
ritual consisted in re-doing the hierarchical relationships in a formalized way
(dromena) and substantiating them through the verbal specification of this act
(legomena) in order to physically and mentally shape and materialize the orga-
nization of power between temple and palace and between god, king, court-
iers, and officials in the Assyrian state. The Assyrian coronation ritual includes
ritualized elaborations of functional movements like moving between palace
and temple, various prostrations performed by the king in front of the god and
by the magnates and officials in front of the king, slapping the king’s cheek,
and moving the insignia of kingship. All of these acts contributed to the bodily,
physical experience of the intended hierarchy of power and enhanced its expe-
rience and communication.206

10.9 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship

Exercising authority involves and depends upon the use of nonverbal instru-
ments and media,207 among them the regalia of kingship. Insignia such as the
scepter, weapon, crown, and throne function as signifiers of the royal office
and distinguish the king’s status from that of the rest of the population. As
“iconic emblems,” they announce the authority of their bearer to a given audi-
ence and within a circumscribed context or sphere of activity.208 Incantations
dedicated to the royal insignia dating to the Neo-Assyrian period reveal that

204 RIMA 2, Adad-nārārī II A.0.99.2:5‒10.

205 See the remarks in my introduction.
206 Rappaport 1999, 50 f.
207 Lincoln 1994, 5.
208 Lincoln 1994, 7.
442 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

they were considered to be of divine origin, created by divine craftsmen like

Ninildu (the carpenter of Anu), Ninagal (the goldsmith of Anu),209 and Kusu
(chief šangû of Enlil).210 Divine craftsmanship of this kind was understood to
imbue the king’s regalia with divine agency, which guaranteed the functioning
of the cosmic order. Consequently, the king’s regalia not only announced his
authority but effectuated the success of his performance in office. In this light,
the presentation of the insignia to the king during the coronation ritual was
thus a prerequisite for his successful rulership, and their destiny to serve the
king had been determined by the gods.211
As is discussed in Chapter Five, these iconic emblems were listed among
the me and were often used as synecdoches for rulership212 in text and image.
In the ancient Weltanschauung, they not only represented kingship but could
act as secondary agents213 of the king or the office of kingship, divine and
human. In ritual performance, the king’s attire or garment could serve as a
representation of the king’s presence, which is attested in the celebration of
the Assyrian akītu-festival in the imperial periphery; in the festive cycle in the
city of Aššur the king wore Aššur’s tiara to signal the god’s and the king’s
uncontested kingship.
In his discussion of deified emblems and paraphernalia, which are listed
in the early god lists from Fara and Abu Ṣalabīḥ, Gebhard Selz observed that
items like “the Crown,” the “Headband” or “Turban,” the “Princely Ring(?),”
“the Staff (of) the Leader,” and the “Nose Rope,” “were actually thought to
contain the respective powers of the respective office.”214 Although Selz is cer-
tainly correct in emphasizing that “these objects were not mere ‘attributes,’”
but “were thought to contain ‘ideas’ materially”215 that linked the concept of
rulership to the ‘office’ rather than to the person holding that office, I stress
the agency of these objects in the experience of the human mind for precisely
this reason.216

209 In the ritual for the reconstruction of a temple from Uruk it is Guškinbanda who functions
as the divine goldsmith, Thureau-Dangin 1921, 46‒47.
210 See the incantations addressed to the royal throne (K 4906 + 1‒5 and K9276+ rev. 4, Berle-
jung 1996, 21 f.), the royal weapon (K 4906+ 58‒85 and K 9276+ rev. 6, Berlejung 1996, 26‒27),
and the royal bow (K 4906+ 134‒172+, Berlejung 1996, 28‒29).
211 Berlejung 1996, 32.
212 See Chapter 5.1.
213 While Selz 2008 works with the concept of “prototype,” I prefer the notion of “secondary
agent” (Pongratz-Leisten 2011a).
214 Selz 2008, 18 and Chapter 5.1 of this book.
215 Selz 2008, 19.
216 Pongratz-Leisten 2011a.
 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship 443

The agency of deified objects is apparent in the fact that in the Assyro-
Babylonian Weltanschauung there were limitations when these iconic emblems
happened to fall into the hands of usurpers. In the Anzû Myth, for instance,
the lion-eagle Anzû poses a threat to the cosmic order who can wield power
effectively once he steals the Tablet of Destinies from its rightful owner Enlil,
the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon. Anzû cannot, however, perform the
office of kingship because the gods do not accept the legitimacy of his status.
Accordingly, “offices, insignia, and office holders all advance claims which are
most effective when correlated with one another.”217 The ritual context of the
king’s “negative confession” during the Babylonian akītu-festival offers a per-
fect example for the correlation between office, insignia, and office holder, as
the word of the king is considered effective and worthy of the acceptance of
the people represented by the priest only if he is the rightful occupant of the
office and has correctly performed his duties toward Marduk and the Babyloni-
an elites.218 A similar notion of legitimacy has been noted in the Assyrian ritu-
als with regard to Aššur’s crown, as its legitimizing potential is enforced
through the cult for the ancestors.
As stated above, the regalia of kingship – the scepter, crown, and throne –
were conceived of as being of divine origin, a concept whose literary origins
can be traced back to the myth of the Eridu Genesis. In that text, the notion
that the emblems originate with the divine represents a strategy for sacralizing
the institution of kingship:

When the royal [sce]pter (giššibir nam-lugal-la) was com[ing] down from heaven, the au-
gust [cr]own (men-mah) and the royal [th]rone (gu-za nam-lugal-la) being already down
from heaven, he (the king) [regularly] performed to perfection the august divine services
and offices (garza me mah), laid [the bricks] of those cities [in pure spots.] They were
[n]amed by name and [al]lotted [ha]lf-bushel baskets.219

Accordingly, whoever performed the office of kingship in the rightful posses-

sion of the royal insignia implicitly asserted a connection to the gods mediated
through a line of kings220 that reached back to the time before the flood. The
deification of the royal insignia – attested from the Early Dynastic period
through to the Neo-Assyrian period – and the ascription of agency to them
confirms the notion that they were originally regarded as the property of the
gods, who entrusted them to the legitimate ruler.

217 Lincoln 1994, 8.

218 Pongratz-Leisten 1997d.
219 Jacobsen 1987, 146.
220 Lincoln 1994, 104.
444 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

A ritual centered on the purification and animation of the royal insignia

served to ensure the king’s effective and successful performance of the duties
of his office.221 Among these insignia were the royal garments, the throne, the
scepter, the tiara, the weapon, the bow, the staff, and the jewelry. The ceremo-
ny probably took place in the temple222 where the mīs pî and purification rites
were enacted upon the garment, the throne, and the ritual throne at night,
under the stars, thus indicating that the ceremony must have been performed
on the roof or in the courtyard of the temple. These insignia were then placed
before the following gods and stars, who were addressed with prayers: Enlil,
Ištar, Anu, Nusku, Ursa Minor, Sîn, Gula, Šamaš, Papsukkal, Ea, Marduk, Zar-
panītu, Nabû, and Tašmētu. Preparations for the installation of the king en-
sued, beginning with an incantation for Šamaš, Ea, and Marduk-Asalluhi, and
followed by the king’s prayers to his personal god and goddess. Subsequently,
the exorcists (mašmaššu) gave all the royal insignia to the king while reciting
incantations as the king faced toward the east, probably toward the rising sun.
The king then returned to the palace facing north. He was given the boomerang
and underwent an exorcistic ritual involving the release of a bird. Another in-
cantation followed and then the text breaks off.
The principal reason that this ritual should not be identified as the corona-
tion ritual is that the participants differ; in the actual coronation ritual it was
the šangû-priest who installed the king, while in this ritual the cultic experts
involved are the exorcists. This prescriptive ritual should be categorized as the
annual reaffirmation of the king in his office. The king participates actively in
the ceremony, and he again does so in his role as Ninurta. This is indicated by
the incantation that he himself recites when he is invested with the insignia of
royalty:

 1 He stands before the Gate of the Sunrising223, you put …

 2 All baldric you put on it, respectively one exorcist stands on the right and the left
side of the king.
 3 They carry a purification sprinkler.

221 Originally classified as mīs pî (Meier 1937‒38). In his 1966 dissertation on the mīs pî ritual,
Christopher Walker recognized that the various fragments published by Meier belonged to a
different ritual, and was followed by Berlejung 1996; for Walker’s publication of the mīs pî
ritual see Walker and Dick 2001.
222 On the basis of a recitation from Anu’s New Year festival at Uruk that is known to have
been performed at the end of a procession in the temple, Berlejung 1996, 11 fn. 40 and p. 16
assumes that the ritual also started with a procession of the king into the temple.
223 The question is whether this gate can be equated with the city gate known from the Aššur
Directory, Menzel 1981, T155, GAB 129 mukin kussî(aš.te) šarrūti (man-ti) = abul niphi (ká.gal
kur-i).
 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship 445

 4 You give the scepter to the king and you recite [the incantation “Wood of the
S]ea,”
 5 You sprinkle water on the tiara,
 6 You give the golden tiara and you recite the incantation “Tiara, its
Awe-Inspiring Sheen,”
 7 You give the bow and you recite the incantation “Long Bow,”
 8 You give the staff and you recite the incantation “Great Lord, (clothed in)
Awe-Inspiring Sheen,”
 9 You give the stones and you recite the incantation “Great Stone, Great Stone.”
When you are done with the recitations,
10 and he has put on the golden tiara and the stones, and he carries the scepter in
his hand,
11 you receive the bow, the weapon and the staff and you put them on the throne.
12 He prostrates himself, enters the palace and puts his face towards North.
13 You give to him the curved staff and you recite the incantation “I Lifted My
Curved Staff.”
14 He puts his hand on the fermenting vat and
15 you make [him recite] “Sirius, who appeases god and humankind,”
16 When he is done with the recitation, he removes the stopper from the fermenting
vat.224

Since in this ritual it is the exorcist who bestows the regalia, it seems that the
purification ceremony might have been repeated annually.225 Claus Ambos has
suggested that it might have been performed together with the bīt salāʾ mê
ritual during the Babylonian akītu-festival in the month of Tašritu. While the
bīt salāʾ mê ritual was equally performed in Assyria, it seems that there it was
linked with the substitute king.226
It should also be noted that in this ritual every object belonging to the
king – not only his throne, scepter, and tiara, but also his weapon, bow, staff,
and jewelry – is purified and, I suggest, given agency by means of an incanta-
tion, which delineates each object’s scope of action in a performative manner.
See, for instance, the bilingual incantation addressed to the royal weapon:

58 f. Incantation: Weapon bestowed with namrirru-splendor, made suitable for

kingship,
60 f. Eminent miṭṭu-weapon, which is made perfect for the hand (lit.: arm) of the king,
62 f. Surrounded by the ferocious melammu-splendor, to whose side nobody can come
close,

224 Text: K 9276+ //BM 64358+; Edition: Berlejung 1996, 8 ff.

225 Suggested by Claus Ambos, who considers thebīt salā’ mê to be part of the annual re-
enactment of the coronation ceremony performed on Tašritu 7th and 8th, see the note in Salla-
berger 2007, 426 § 4.3 and Ambos 2010.
226 SAA 10 219, 309, and 352.
446 The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

64 f. To level the hostile lands and to strike down the enemy.

66 f. Enki/Ea, king of the Apsû,
67 f. called upon Ninildu, chief carpenter of Anu, and gave him the following order:
69 f. ‘Go Ninildu, chief carpenter of Anu,
71 f. into the pure forest, whose woods have grown high …’
The following lines are lost and then the text turns very fragmentary.227

The royal regalia were made of precious metals and woods, as was the royal
throne, which – as is described in Enki and the World Order – was fashioned
from the wood of the highland mēsu trees.228 An incantation related to the
investiture of the king describes the wood as being brought from Dilmun: “Tree
of the Sea grown in the pristine place, oak, mēsu, tree of the Sea, brought from
Dilmun, whose destiny is decreed by Enlil …”229 The tiara or crown is frequent-
ly said to be made of gold. Being the most impervious of all metals to rust,
gold in Mesopotamia was probably also “understood as a form of matter not
subject to the degenerative forces of time.”230
In Assyrian cultural discourse, the royal regalia served simultaneously as
concrete instruments of kingship entrusted to the king during the coronation
ritual and as the visual symbols of kingship.231 The bestowal of the insignia
was conceptualized in both mythology and iconography as an act performed
by the gods. This is reflected in an Assyrian ritual commentary that equates
the king with Ninurta:

The king, who wears on his head a golden tiara from inside of the temple and sits on a
sedan chair, while they carry him and go to the palace, is Ninurta, who avenged his
father. The gods his fathers decorated him inside the Ekur, gave him the scepter, throne
and the staff, adorned him with the splendor of kingship, and he went out to the moun-
tain.232

A depiction on an Assyrian helmet represents the only pictorial scene dedicat-

ed to the theme of royal investiture. It portrays the gods Aššur and Ištar be-
stowing the regalia of kingship upon the king (fig. 30).233

227 Berlejung 1996, 26‒267.

228 Enki and the World Order, ETCSL 1.1.3, 221‒222: kur gig₂ giš-zu gal he₂-em gištir-zu mes
kur-ra he₂-em 222gišgu-za-bi e₂-gal lugal-la-ke₄ [me]-te he₂-em-mi-ib-gal₂ “Black land, may your
trees be great trees, may your forests be forests of highland mes trees! Chairs made from them
will grace royal palaces.”
229 Berlejung 1996, 21.
230 Lincoln 1994, 104.
231 Cancik-Kirschbaum 1999, 240.
232 SAA 3 no. 39 r. 20 ff.
233 Born and Seidl 1997, 36‒37.
 Sacralizing the Regalia of Kingship 447

Amar Annus has collected the evidence depicting Ninurta as the holder of
the royal regalia and has also illuminated parallels between the gods Ninurta
and Nabû in the bestowal of royal insignia.234 In the first millennium akītu-
festival in Babylon, it is Nabû who bestows the royal insignia on the 4th of
Nisannu in his temple Nabû ša harê. Nabû adopted this role from Ninurta in
Middle Babylonian Nippur, where the Nippur Compendium records that there
was a Chapel of the Scepter (é.gišgidru = bīt haṭṭi) that should probably be
located in Ninurta’s temple Eumeša. Andrew George suggests that Nabû’s role
was modeled on Ninurta and that Ninurta’s ceremonial bestowal was the “pro-
totype after which the priests of Nabû ša harê at Babylon, and later Aššur,
modeled their own ritual.”235

234 Annus 2002, 51 ff.

235 George 1996, 384 f.
11 The Voice of the Scholar
11.1 Tradition and Scholarly Agency
My intention in this book has been twofold: to trace the formation of Assyrian
ideological discourse in light of intercultural interaction and as mediated in
text, ritual, and imagery throughout the history of Assyria, and to bring to
life the agency behind it. As pointed out by Hayim Tadmor, Sargon II’s Eighth
Campaign is currently the only text that unequivocally identifies the king’s
scholar (ummânu) as the author of a royal inscription.1 Nevertheless, some of
the primary characteristics of Assyrian ideology, namely its richness, diversity,
intertextuality with literary texts, and intermediality with other media includ-
ing ritual and image, can only be accounted for if we conceive of the scholars
in the entourage of the king as being actively and permanently involved in the
construction of his body politic as it was presented to the world and to the
gods.2
The discussions in Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight centering on intertextual-
ity between myth, epic, and royal inscriptions and in Chapter Ten on the link
between myth and ritual have demonstrated that royal ideology in ancient
Near Eastern cultures cannot and should not be treated as a purely political
discourse. Rather, ideology implicitly responded to and was in negotiation with
the long-existing religious tradition guarded, preserved, and transmitted by
hommes de lettres over the course of hundreds and even thousands of years.
Although this tradition was subject to historical realities, its notion of kingship
in paticular geographical regions proved relatively consistent through the cen-
turies. This consistency also characterizes what I have defined as the typical
Tigridian cultural discourse of the end of the third and beginning of the second
millennium BCE. The transmission and transfer of Tigridian cultural discourse
encompasses Lagaš, Akkad, Ešnunna, Mari, and Aššur from the Pre-Sargonic
through to the Old Babylonian period, and was firmly established by the time
of Šamšī-Adad I (1808‒1776 BCE). Literati close to the king – including the
experts (whether diviners or exorcists) who organized the local cult and calen-
dar in the various centers through which Tigridian cultural discourse spread –
functioned as the carriers of that cultural interaction, while the efforts of kings
to compete with the image-making of their peers served to drive the process of
cultural diffusion forward.

1 Tadmor 1997, 328.

2 This was already proposed by Hayim Tadmor in 1981, 31‒32 on the basis of the thoughts of
Otto Schroeder and revived again in 1997, 328.
 Tradition and Scholarly Agency 449

At the beginning of this book I defined tradition as the growing body of

cultural memory informed by social values and practices, which materializes
in a constantly reformulated and reconceptualized cultural discourse mediated
in myth, historiography, architecture, iconography, and ritual. While there is a
conservative element to tradition that aims to preserve the status quo or, as in
the Mesopotamian case, strives for a return to the golden age of the time before
the flood, the constant reformulation of tradition in cultural discourse and in
ideology as its subcategory is in practice an extremely dynamic and innovative
process that is always in negotiation with actual historical events. This tension
between conservatism on the one hand and re-actualization and reinvention
on the other is evident in the development of royal ideological discourse
throughout Mesopotamian history.
Royal ideological discourse was dominated by particular tropes centered
on the king as warrior and as caretaker of the cult, which were formulated for
the first time during the Late Uruk period in the emerging city state of Uruk
and which survive in both the monumental art and miniature glyptic iconogra-
phy of the time. This discourse developed further in Pre-Sargonic Lagaš and
was then reformulated during the Akkad period in the various media of royal
ideology. From there, it inspired the royal discourse of the kingdom of Ešnunna
and that of Šamšī-Adad I and was reworked in Old Babylonian myth and in
epic literature centered on the Sargonic kings – though the latter facilitated
also the articulation of a critical position regarding the institution of kingship.
Subsequently, the warrior ideology was reformulated in the Assyrian heroic
epics of the Middle Assyrian period before being incorporated in Assyrian royal
inscriptions in which it defined the ideal chaîne opératoire for the respective
king. In the Tigridian region (i.e. Lagaš, Ešnunna, and Aššur), this ideology
centered on the heroic king in the role of the warrior god is – some gaps not-
withstanding – preserved in various permutations throughout antiquity, re-
gardless of who was actually in control of a given territory.
With regard to the articulation of a particularly Assyrian royal ideological
discourse, the evidence suggests three periods of major stimuli: (1) the reign
of Šamšī-Adad I, during which an Old Babylonian cultural discourse centered
on the kings Sargon and Narām-Sîn of Akkad was introduced to Assyria; (2)
the Middle Assyrian period from Adad-nīrārī I (1295‒1264 BCE) onward culmi-
nating in the reigns of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE) and Tiglath-Pileser I
(1115‒1077 BCE), during which the Ninurta mythology was introduced into As-
syrian ideological discourse and a host of regicentric literature centered on the
figure of the king was produced; and (3) the Sargonid period, during which
control of the stream of tradition is manifest not only in the very existence of
Assyria’s extensive libraries, but equally in the creation of a rich corpus of texts
450 The Voice of the Scholar

which abound in intertextual relationships and in intermediality with ritual. It

is at the very end of the Sargonid period that the iconography of palace reliefs
and steles is supplemented by the endeavor to present the king as being in
constant dialogue with the gods, an effort apparent in the genres of divine
letters to the king and of royal reports to the god Aššur, as well as in the textual-
ization of the Ištar oracles and in unique compositions like the Fictive Dialogue
between Ashurbanipal and Nabû.
Such a dynamic interaction with tradition implies that at any given histori-
cal moment the king and the scholars were in intense conversation, since they
had to agree on the ideological message that they ultimately intended to con-
vey.3 Accordingly, this final chapter scrutinizes the various settings in which
scholarly agency (as exercised by scholars in the entourage of the king) might
be discernible.

11.2 The Scholars at the Assyrian Court

Explicit references to cooperation between Assyrian kings and their scholars
are scarce prior to the surviving correspondence between Esarhaddon and Ash-
urbanipal and their scholars, which allows us to establish nuanced profiles for
some of the experts consulted by these two kings. Until the Sargonid period,
scholars as individuals are thus consigned almost entirely to the shadows. Oc-
casionally, however, either through the coincidental discovery of their seals or
their libraries or through particular collections of texts, it is possible to gain
some insight into the actual persons acting on behalf of royal interests.
Although scholars must have been associated with the Assyrian royal court
from very early on, a chief scholar tied to the king (as indicated by the title
‘scribe of the king’, ṭupšar šarri) only emerges as a distinct figure in the textual
sources under Aššur-uballiṭ I (1353‒1318 BCE). This ṭupšar šarri can be consid-
ered the predecessor of the later ummânū, who are listed together with the
kings that they served in the Synchronistic King List.4 In addition to this kind
of explicit reference, several scribes and scholars are attested in the colophons
of literary and lexical texts from the first half of the 12th century BCE at Aššur,
bearing witness to lively literary creativity at the time of Aššur’s expansion
toward the west, when the city gained control over what had been Hanigalbat

3 A similar scenario has been suggested by Machinist 2003b.

4 This interpretation follows Grayson 1980, 117 who edited the Synchronistic King List, which
mentions Issar-šumu-ēresh as the chief astrologer under Esarhaddon and his predecessor
Nabû-zēru-lēšir, who is identified as rab ṭupšarrī.
 The Scholars at the Assyrian Court 451

up to the Balih River under the kings Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒1197 BCE) and
Tiglath-Pileser I (1115‒1077 BCE). Middle Assyrian titles such as ‘diviner of the
king’ (bāri šarre)5 and ‘exorcist of the king’ (āšip šarre)6 point to the existence
of close relationships between the king and scholars; the continuity of such
intimate working relationships is indicated by the aforementioned Synchronis-
tic King List. The Synchronistic King List was first composed under Ashurbani-
pal (668‒631/27? BCE) or shortly thereafter, and the list originally commenced
with the kings Erišum I of Assyria and Sumulael of Babylonia and ended with
Ashurbanipal/Kandalanu. The Assyrian King List, Babylonian King List, and
Chronicles must have formed the Vorlage for the Synchronistic King List, which
lists the names of the chief scholars of the respective kings of Assyria and
Babylonia alongside the names of the kings themselves from the tenth century
onward. Two chief scholars are listed for Sennacherib, namely the Babylonian
astrologer Bēl-upahhir and Kalbu, who eventually conspired against the king.7
The extensive collections of epistolary literature, extispicy queries, and as-
trological reports from the Late Sargonid period represent the most lively wit-
nesses to the cooperation between Assyrian kings and their Assyrian and Baby-
lonian scholars.8 Both the king and the scholars participated in the effort to
assemble comprehensive libraries, which not only reflected the cultural know-
ledge of the time but, as demonstrated by the extremely large number of divi-
nation texts and texts related to exorcistic lore, were also intended to respond
to the challenges posed by everyday politics.9 In some cases scholars are re-
ferred to by name, and are thus identifiable as individuals. Particularly rich
evidence survives from the reign of Adad-nīrārī III (809‒783 BCE, Nimrud) and
the Sargonid period, as libraries have been excavated in Sennacherib’s South-
west Palace, Ashurbanipal’s North Palace, the temples of Nabû and Ištar on
the royal citadel in Nineveh, and the temple of Nabû in Nimrud.10 These finds
are complemented by the discoveries from Aššur, which include traces of Mid-
dle and Neo-Assyrian libraries in the Aššur temple and the library of a family
of exorcists.11 Colophons preserved on tablets from these libraries allow us to

5 Jakob 2003, 522‒528.

6 Jakob 2003, 528‒535.
7 SAA 10 no. 109.
8 Pongratz-Leisten 1999; now also Radner 2011 and Robson 2011. For the presence of Babyloni-
an scholars and texts written in Babylonian script see Fincke 2004.
9 Parpola 1983; Fincke 2004.
10 Outside of the Nabû temple, a number of texts have been found intermingled with archival
documents in Nimrud’s Northwest Palace and in Fort Shalmaneser, see Black 2008.
11 Pedersen 1985 and 1986.
452 The Voice of the Scholar

reconstruct several scholarly families who served numerous Assyrian kings; in

some cases, these families appear to have been of Babylonian origin.12
Close cooperation between kings and scholars can occasionally be docu-
mented over several generations, as is the case for Adad-šuma-iṣṣur, who was
not only an eminent exorcist and advisor of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal,
but also the grandson of Gabbi-ilāni-ēreš, himself a scholar of Ashurnasirpal
II and Tukultī-Ninurta II. The brother of Adad-šuma-iṣṣur was Nabû-zēru-lēšir,
who similarly worked as chief scribe and scholar under Esarhaddon and who
was succeeded in this capacity by his descendant Issar-šumu-ēreš. Both Adad-
šuma-iṣṣur and Nabû-zēru-lēšir were sons of the illustrious Nabû-zuqup-kēnu,
well-known for his “editorial work from tablets dated in the reigns of Sargon
and Sennacherib from Nineveh,”13 some of which were written in Nimrud.
Nabû-zuqup-kēnu’s library primarily comprised omen texts, but also included
Tablet XII of the Gilgamesh Epic, which seems to be the only extant literary
tablet written by him.14
Whether the cache of 400 tablets found in Sultantepe was intended to be
kept safe from invaders around 610 BCE is not clear, but their scribes are all
known to have been members of a family of šangûs in the service of the gods
Zababa and Bau of Arbail, including Qurdī-Nergal and his sons Mušallim-Bau
and Nabû-zēr-kitti-lēšir.15
A fragmentary letter from the reign of Sargon II (721‒705 BCE) suggests that
the Babylonian king Marduk-apla-iddina II collected the writing boards stored
in the temple library and hid them away in a safe place to prevent them from
being pillaged by the Assyrian king.16 Cooperation between the king and his
scholars is vividly reflected in a letter of Ashurbanipal, preserved in two copies,
in which the king commands his scholars to collect all texts from private schol-
arly collections in Babylonia that were not yet included in the collections of
the libraries of Nineveh:
1
Message of the king to Šadānu: 2I am well, you may be content. 3As soon as you read
this tablet, 4take Šumâ, son of Šumu-ukīn, 5Bēl-ēṭir, his brother, 6Aplâ, son of Arkat-ilāni,
7
and the scholars of Borsippa, whom you know 8and tablets, as much as there are in their
houses, 9and tablets, as much as there are stored in Ezida, 10dig out. And the tablets, the
amulets (for the neck) of the king, 11for the rivers for the days of Nisannu, 12the amulet of

12 See for instance the scholar of Adad-nīrārī III, whose great-grandfather Issaran-mudammiq
was an official of Aššurnaṣirpal with Babylonian ancestry, see Black 2008, 263.
13 Black 2008, 263. See also Lieberman 1987, 204‒17 and Frahm 1999, 78.
14 Frahm 1999, 78.
15 Gurney 1997; Robson 2011, 559 f.
16 SAA 17 no. 201, discussion Fincke 2004, 55.
 The Scholars at the Assyrian Court 453

the rivers for the month Tašritu, for the “house of water sprinkling,” 13amulet of the rivers
of the verdict of the day, 144 amulets for the head end of the royal bed and the foot end
of the royal (bed) 15“Weapon (made) of erû-wood” for the head end of the bed of the king,
16
the incantation “Ea and Asaluhhi may 17gather wisdom” collect. 18The incantation series
(for the) battle, as much as there is, 19in addition to the rare “long tablets” 20as many as
there are. 21“In battle the arrow should not approach man,”
rev. 22
“When walking in the steppe,” “Entering of the Palace,” 23the rituals, “šuilla-
prayers,” 24inscriptions on? stones and 25what is good for kingship. 26the purification ritu-
al uru.igi.nigin.na (ṣūd pāni) 27“Out of concern” and whatever is needed 28in the palace,
as much as there is, and rare tablets 29which are known to you 30but do not exist in
Assyria, look out for it, 31bring them here. Simultaneously
32
I have written to the chief administrator and the prefect (šakin ṭēmi). 33You shall deposit
(the tablets) in your storeroom. Nobody 34is allowed to withhold a tablet for you. And as
for any tablet or 35ritual that I have not written to you about and you think 36good for the
palace, 37carry them away as well 38and bring them here.17

In this particular case, the response of the scholars of Borsippa is preserved in

a letter written in a beautiful style, which, as indicated by its colophon, became
part of the scribal tradition:

By command of Bēl and Bēltiya, let it be a success!

To Ashurbanipal, great king, mighty king, king of the world, king of Assyria, king who
can do as he pleases, [to whom Marduk, who dwells in E-sangil,] 2gave charge and delegat-
ed the kingship of Assyria and (on whom) he conferred the kingship of the entire country,
(who) grasps in his hand a fair scepter [that subdues] 3the insubmissive, (who) bears in
his right hand the staff that lays low the aggressor, on whom Nabû, who dwells [in E-
zida,] 4bestowed broad understanding and who like me is bowed to the scribal art, we
send [word, thus:]
5
May the great lord Marduk, who dwells in E-sangil and determines destinies, bestow on
you as a gift a fair scepter, a true staff 6and a magnificent crown! May Nabû, who dwells
in E-zida, intercede for you 7before Marduk, the father who sired him! May Nanāya, the
lady of E-ur-šaba, lay low your enemy and destroy your [foe]!
8
Further: The dutiful Borsippans will send back to the king the instruction that he wrote
9
as follows, “Write out all the scribal learning in the property of Nabû and send it to me.
10
Complete the instruction!” Maybe the king says to himself, we (are ones) who, like the
citizens of Babylon, will shirk (it) 11by (using) confusing language. Now, we shall not shirk
the king’s command. We shall strain and toil day and night to complete the instruction
for our lord the king. 12We shall write on boards of sissoo-wood, we shall respond immedi-
ately! And regarding the board in Sumerian, the glossary 13about which you sent word,
there is none but that in E-sangil. Let enquiries now be made before our lord the king.
14
[You should] send word to the citizens of Babylon. Our destiny and their destiny 15are
[…] like […] that they possess judgments and decisions, (is) true 16 […] in Babylon […]
… with them, our lord the king. We shall write 17[…] … […] all, we shall complete the
instruction.

17 CT 22 1 (BM 25676 and 25678), see Lieberman 1990.

454 The Voice of the Scholar

18
[May Marduk and Nabû, the] bonds of the great gods, the lords of heaven and under-
world, 20decree in the life of our lord the king a favorable destiny, 19[long duration of
reign, soundness of body, soundness of mind and straightness of bone.
21
This inscription was copied on to a tablet (or tablets) of alabaster and sent to all the
colleagues.
22
Written according to its original, checked and collated. Tablet of Bēl-uballissu, son of
Nabû-mušētiq-uddi, descendant of Mušēzib. 23Hand of (=written by) Nabû-mušētiq-uddi,
his son. He who fears Šamaš must not erase my hand(writing).18

Note that in his letter Ashurbanipal requests original clay tablets, while the
Borsippan scholars respond that they will deliver writing boards – probably
because they wished to retain the original tablets in their own library.19
The inventory tablets of Nineveh’s libraries20 reflect the intense acquisition
of tablets following Ashurbanipal’s destruction of Babylon in 647 BCE: “Ap-
proximately two thousand tablets and three hundred writing boards were tak-
en from Assyrian and Babylonian private scholars, who gave away composi-
tions they did not need for their professional work.”21 The colophons of tablets
from the Nineveh libraries identify them as the property of the royal palace
(tuppi/uʾilti Aššur-bāni-apli, and ekal Aššur-bāni-apli) and promote the king as
the patron of the arts. During the Late Neo-Assyrian period this discourse de-
veloped from a portrayal of the king as a ‘collector’ and ‘connoisseur’ of cultur-
al knowledge to a deliberate representation of the king as a sage and active
participant in scholarly discourse, who was fully conversant in the divinatory
techniques. This development is first apparent in Esarhaddon’s claim that he
separated the diviners into several groups in order to compare the results of
their respective extispicies.22 This motif also occurs in the composition Sin of
Sargon, which probably dates to Esarhaddon’s reign:

(10) “[Let me examine] by means of extispicy the sin of Sargon, my father, let me then
determine [the circumstances] and le[arn the ……; let me make] the sin he committed
against the god an abom[ination to myself], and with the god’s help let me safe myself”.
(13) I w[ent and collected the haruspices], who guard the secret of the god and king, the
courtiers of my palace, divided them [into several (lit. three or four) groups] so that they
could not ap[proach or speak to one another], and [investigated] the sins of Sargon, my
father, by extispicy, [inquiring of Šamaš and Adad].”23

18 Frame and George 2005.

19 Fincke 2004, 57.
20 SAA 7 nos. 49‒52.
21 Fincke, 2004, 57.
22 Leichty, RINAP 4, no. 48 72b‒79a.
23 Tadmor, Landsberger, and Parpola 1989, 11.
 The Scholars at the Assyrian Court 455

By the time of Ashurbanipal, this theme is elaborated so that the king himself
now claims to have learned how to interpret the written sources and to perform
divination:

I have mastered the craft of the sage Adapa, the guarded secret(s) of the whole scribal
art. I can observe the signs of the heavens and the earth and discuss them in the meetings
of the scholars, I am capable of debating with the learned oil masters the (chapter of the
diviner manual entitled) “if the liver is a correspondence of the sky,” and I can solve
the most complicated mathematical divisions and multiplications that have no solution
(provided with the problem). I have read the most complicated (bilingual) text whose
Sumerian is obscure, and whose Akkadian version is difficult to unravel. I have studied
stone inscriptions from before the flood of the complicated (text whose opening line is)
kakku sakku.24

Whether Ashurbanipal really acquired the ability to check his scholars’s inter-
pretations of the liver, “to correct imprecise citations” of texts by reference to
the originals, and whether he indeed knew, “independently, when his course
of action was correct,”25 must remain open to debate.26 Ashurbanipal’s patron-
age of scholarly work – as realized in his library – should, however, certainly
be considered as “the material realization of an elementary principle of politi-
cal behavior: that is, that culture and art are intimately connected with the art
of government. Like Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici, both warriors and politi-
cians who strongly favored new editions of Classical texts, and, more generally
cultural and artistic development, Ashurbanipal was deeply convinced that en-
hancing culture was one of the most powerful instruments of political con-
trol.”27
The trope of the king’s involvement in the discovery of the divine will
through divinatory means, as addressed in both the royal inscriptions and the
epistolary literature, is equally apparent in the literary texts of the first millen-
nium. The late version of the Cuthean Legend, for example, stresses that the
king should communicate and interact with the gods through divination and
adhere to the conclusions of the divinatory process, while the first millennium
version of the Gilgameš Epic and the Cuthean Legend both emphasize the im-
portance of transmitting knowledge gained through experience to future gener-

24 Quoted after Michalowski 2005.

25 Lieberman 1990, 329.
26 This question should not be confused with questions concerning whether or not Ashurban-
ipal was literate, which he was, see most recently Livingstone 2007, who, unfortunately, misun-
derstood my take on Ashurbanipal’s deep involvement with the construction of cultural dis-
course.
27 Lanfranchi 1998, 155.
456 The Voice of the Scholar

ations. It therefore comes as no surprise that copies of these texts have been
recovered from the royal Assyrian libraries, underscoring the importance of
these notions to the Assyrian conception of successful kingship.

11.3 The King as Sage and the Mobilization of Asymmetrical

Relationships
From Sennacherib onward cultural accomplishments involving knowledge of
divination and other skills were ascribed to the mythical sage Adapa. Along-
side the image of the king as successful warrior, the image of the knowledgea-
ble, skillful, and wise king – often through the evocation of the Adapa motif –
developed into a powerful constituent of the royal body politic in Assyrian ideo-
logical discourse. Sennacherib’s Bull Inscription, which is concerned with the
building of his “Palace-Without-Rival,” combines the motif of the skillful and
knowledgeable king with an intertextual reference to the myths of The Creation
of Man and King and Atrahasīs by dwelling on the role of the mother goddess
Bēlet-ilī and the god Ea in his conception:

“Bēlet-ilī, the goddess of procreation, looked upon me with favor (while I was still in the
womb of the mother who bore me, and watched over my conception, while the god
Ninšiku (Ea) provided a spacious womb and granted me vast comprehension.”28

In the building inscription dedicated to his construction of the arsenal in Nim-

rud, Esarhaddon (680‒669 BCE) extols himself in the following terms:

“As for me, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, pious prince, to whom the prince, the god
Ninšiku (Ea), gave (wisdom) equal to that of the sage Adapa, that terrace was on my mind
and I (text: “he”) thought about it. I incorporated unused land as an addition (and) raised
the terrace with massive stone blocks from the mountains.”29

The Adapa motif was not only incorporated in the royal inscriptions, but equal-
ly came to be embraced as a trope by the king’s scholars, albeit for a slightly
different purpose: they employed it to emphasize their asymmetrical relation-
ship with the king. In a very fragmentary letter, the chief haruspex of Ashur-
banipal compares the deeds of Esarhaddon to those of Adapa,30 while he lo-
cates the king in the direct lineage of the antediluvian sage:

28 OIP 2, 117, Undated Bull inscription (I 1).

29 RINAP 4, no. 77: 45‒49.
30 SAA 10 380 3′‒4′: epšētu šarri [bēlīya] / [a]na ša adapi mušlā, “Now, th[en], the deeds of
the king, [my lord], are like those of (the sage) Adapa.”
 The King as Sage and the Mobilization of Asymmetrical Relationships 457

Aššur, in a dream, called the grandfather of the king, my lord, a sage (apkallu); the king,
lord of the kings, is an offspring of a sage (apkalli) and Adapa: You have surpassed the
wisdom of the Abyss and all scholarship.31

Likewise, Ashurbanipal’s chief astrologer emphasizes the king’s “membership”

in the learned circle of scholars by acknowledging his education as a scholar:

[The king, my lord], is made [li]ke a sage; he has understood their counsels …32

The use of the trope could even be extended to the queen mother:

… – the mother of the king is as able as the (sage) Adapa!33

These quotations from the letters of scholars not only reflect the seminal role
of scholars in shaping the ideological discourse centered on the image of the
king, but are also very revealing with regard to how the scholars positioned
themselves in direct relation to the king. By assigning the role of Adapa – the
mythic heros eponymos of their guild – to the king, the scholars simultaneously
positioned the king in close proximity to the gods and defined him as the medi-
ating channel between themselves and the gods.
Even while stressing their asymmetrical relationship with the king, how-
ever, the scholars obliquely insinuated that cultural authority now lay with the
sages, i.e. scholars, rather than with the antediluvian kings. When used by the
scholars to honor the king as their social superior, the trope of comparing the
king to Adapa thus had a twofold effect. Although it distinguished the king
from the rest of the population, it also entailed obligations toward and depend-
encies on those who elevated him to his lofty position, i.e. the members of the
political and scholarly elites. Accordingly, the rhetoric of exclusivity bound up
with limited access to knowledge and the designation of the king as the ulti-
mate source of authority constituted a notion of distinctiveness that also en-
compassed the scholarly elites. Texts like the Catalogue of Texts and Authors,34
which establishes an intellectual genealogy of scholars that originates with the
god Ea, and the Enmeduranki Legend, which identifies the king as the mediator
between the gods and the scholars,35 were both found in the libraries of Ninev-
eh and constitute literary reflections on this self-definition of the scholarly

31 SAA 10 no. 174: 7‒9.

32 SAA 10 no. 29 2. 2‒3.
33 SAA 10 no. 244: r. 7‒9.
34 Lambert 1962.
35 Lambert 1998.
458 The Voice of the Scholar

elites, implicitly defining them as central and indispensable to royal achieve-

ment.36
Cultural texts like omen compendia and myths were understood to be di-
vine creations, as is illustrated by the Catalogue of Texts and Authors and the
Enmeduranki Legend and its attendant commentary literature.37 The former
text, with its particular assemblage of titles belonging to the body of traditional
texts, demonstrates that Assyrian scholars conceived of a close relationship
between magical knowledge and political leadership. The Catalogue of Texts
and Authors begins by referring to the knowledge of the exorcist and the astrol-
oger, as represented by the titles of important omen compendia, and to the
Ninurta mythology, as expressed through the titles of two major poems dealing
with Ninurta’s deeds (in which Ninurta functions as the divine model of the
human king); the origin of all of these texts is assigned to the god Ea. This
combination of texts and their attribution to Ea – who, with his son Marduk-
Asalluhi, should be regarded as the patron god of magic and pragmatic know-
ledge – offers a valuable insight into the ancient vision of kingship, with regard
both to kingship’s interaction with divination and to the role kingship was
assigned in ancient historiography.
In his capacity as administrator of Enlil and as warrior defending the cos-
mic order against chaos, Ninurta epitomizes the ancient conceptualization of
the mission of kingship. Foreknowledge of the divine will was crucial to suc-
cessful royal performance, as royal actions had to align with the original cos-
mic scheme and with the notion of kittu, cosmic truth and stability. By coupling
divination and the Ninurta mythology under the aegis of the god Ea in the
ancient Catalogue, scholars inscribed the mandate of kingship into the cosmic
scheme designed by the gods.
In shaping the image of royal perfection, the scholars stressed the king’s
expertise and scholarly knowledge, which allowed him to access the divine
world and maintain the cosmic order. Interestingly, it is in the late Sargonid
period, when the scholars had long since managed to secure their position at
the Assyrian royal court and had made themselves indispensable through their
authoritative knowledge of extispicy, astrology, and exorcism, that they active-

36 Machinist 2003b.
37 Frahm 2011, 24; such reasoning entails a different notion of the sacredness of the text, as
the notion of inalterability applies to the content rather than to the textualization process of
the individual text. Notwithstanding the message of the colophons affirming that the scribe
did not alter the text, there was no notion of a closed canon. Rather, the ancients considered
their cultural texts as part of the cosmic truth and stability (kittu) determined by divine decree
in the mythical past; see Démare-Lafont 2011.
 The King as Sage and the Mobilization of Asymmetrical Relationships 459

ly stressed the superiority of the king and concomitantly their asymmetrical

relationship with him. Epithets describing the king as the “image of the god”
(tamšīlu) or as the “flesh of the god” (šīru) are attested primarily in letters
written by scholars to the king in which the king’s absolute power and authori-
ty is emphasized explicitly. The context for the verbal iteration of this asymmet-
rical relationship is always linked to the expression of a scholar’s gratitude or
obligation to the king. In this vein, the royal advisor Adad-šumu-uṣur express-
es his gratitude to Esarhaddon for having decided to retain him and his family
in the royal entourage by likening the king’s will to the will of the god Marduk
in his capacity for care:

“The father of the king, my lord, was the image of Bēl,

And the king, my lord, is the image of Bēl.”38

A passage from an astrological report to the king (perhaps Esarhaddon) is even

more explicit, as it plays with an opposing couplet that refers both to Marduk’s
care and to his devastating wrath, a motif well known from prayer literature
and Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi:

“The compassionate Lord, the warrior Marduk,

Was angry at night,
but relented in the morning.
O king of the world, you are the very image of Marduk.
When you were angry, we
suffered the anger of the king our lord,
(but) we (also) saw the king relent.”39

In another letter the king is equated with the sun god, an image that emerges
in Assyrian ideology in the time of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233‒1177 BCE) as part of
the discourse relating to the solarization of divine and human kingship. As
Peter Machinist stresses, the ruler’s sovereign control over the known world is
akin to the sun god’s manifestation of “the light of his rule over the world.”40
In one of his letters, Adad-šumu-uṣur plays with this metaphor to persuade
Esarhaddon – who is suffering from an illness – to show himself to his officials
and assert his authority:

Why, then, today, for the second time, has this table not been brought before the king,
my lord? Who is in the dark longer than Šamaš, the king of the gods ‒ staying in the dark

38 LAS I no. 228 obv. 18‒19.

39 SAA 8 no. 333.
40 Machinist 2006, 172.
460 The Voice of the Scholar

for a full day and a night, even for two days? The king, the lord of all the lands, is the
very image of Šamaš. He should be in the dark for (only) half a day.41

In one of his letters, Adad-šumu-uṣur elaborates on a proverb by playing with

the double meaning of the word ṣillu, which means either “shadow” or “like-
ness/image:”

“The shadow of god is man, and the shadow of man is man.” (This man is) the king, (for)
he is the likeness of the god (muššuli ša ili).”42

These textual sources reveal a scholarly elite that draws on exclusive ritual and
theological knowledge to secure its elevated status and to distinguish itself
from the rest of the population, even as it takes great care to emphasize the
king’s uncontested authority. The more that the scholars usurped rhetorical
strategies formerly reserved for the king, however, the more they limited the
reservoir of strategies that could convey the king’s ultimate authority and unri-
valled status. The Enmeduranki Legend is illustrative of the way that scholars
could work to reinforce their position in the social hierarchy. In this text, harus-
pices tie themselves to the king while emphasizing their privileged origin in
the ancient cult centers, going so far as to exclude colleagues from the rest
of Babylonia. The legend exemplifies how scholars could situate themselves
alongside the king in the direct line of the transfer of divine knowledge, and
is therefore a clear example of scholars co-opting the institution of kingship in
order to strengthen their own position.
The textual evidence points to a complex balance between power and au-
thority. In Mesopotamia, power and authority were not united seamlessly in a
single agent.43 While power was the preserve of the king – who could make
life and death decisions regarding his subjects and treat his scholars abomina-
bly – the scholars nevertheless retained their authoritative voice as the rightful
guardians of tradition. In assuming their role as transmitters and producers of
symbolic systems and cultural practices, the scholars played a key role in creat-
ing the authority of kingship. While political elites could choose to ignore their
scholarly advisors, in the end they could not escape the cultural definition of
the universal order articulated by the scholars and the place that kingship was
assigned within it.
Together with the palace officials and the clergy of the temples, whose
power derived from their control over substantial economic resources, the

41 LAS I no. 196 obv. 14‒rev. 6, quoted after Machinist 2006, 173.
42 SAA 10 no. 207 r. 10‒13.
43 Lincoln 1994, 37 ff, esp. 38.
 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars 461

scholars tacitly acknowledged the hierarchical relations of power and actively

contributed to its symbolic system, which was ultimately deployed in diverse
media including text, ritual, and image. These various social groups constitut-
ed both the agents in and the audience of the public manifestation of power
and authority. They were all actively engaged in the production and reproduc-
tion of the ceremonial etiquette, the code of gestures, officially prescribed rites,
and the language of power.44 The dynamic interaction between the king and
the scholars in designing the royal body politic demonstrates that “power” and
“authority” were relational concepts that even in the Assyrian monarchical sys-
tem were built on constellations of social groups and interdependencies.45
These power relations were reflected and publicized in the constellations of
the gods in the polytheistic pantheon, who entered a process of mutual legiti-
mization together with the king. Accordingly, rather than thinking in terms of
totalitarian and despotic power, we should aim to decode the cultural strate-
gies deployed by the political and religious elites to construct social distinction
and to define their position of authority and prestige. My emphasis here, of
course, is on the participation of the elites in shaping and sharing the discourse
of power.
As pointed out by Jean-Jacques Glassner,46 the king and the political elites
originated in the same social class, and very often the highest offices were
occupied by members of the royal family, groups that were close to the royal
family, and other people of social prestige. This type of interdependent social
fabric already existed in the archaic period 47 and persisted throughout the his-
tory of Mesopotamia. It functioned on the basis of familial relationships, as
well as on the principle of exchange of gifts and royal grants. Nonetheless,
over the centuries we constantly see the king deploying additional strategies
to define his authority, which operated on the notion of limited access (as ex-
pressed in architecture and protocol), invisibility, and exclusivity.

11.4 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars

Beyond the textual evidence for individual scholars in the various text genres
discussed at the beginning of this chapter, it is possible to consider literary

44 Bourdieu 1977 and 1991, 112.

45 Weber 1976, 28; Holm 1969; Gladigow 1998.
46 Glassner 1993, 18.
47 Glassner discusses the social groups of the Usar.re₂.ne, who included people close to the
royal family, and the lu₂.IGI.NIGIN₂.ne, who according to Glassner and Selz must have been
part of the “aristocracy”, see Selz 1989, 121 who translates “Leute von Ansehen.” While both
462 The Voice of the Scholar

texts themselves as evidence of the presence of scholars in the entourage of

the king and as carriers of tradition. Since it is possible to draw a distinction
between bureaucratic literacy and higher education, the presence of literary
texts indicates the presence of people capable of engaging with the cultural
discourse.
There is clear evidence of intense communication between educated
scribes or scholars from Aššur and learned circles further south at the begin-
ning of the second millennium BCE. Of particular significance in this respect
is the creation of an Assyrian Sargon Legend rich in allusions to literary texts
from the Sumero-Babylonian horizon,48 the discovery of Old Assyrian incanta-
tions, some of which contain traces of Hymnic Epical Dialect,49 the unearthing
of an exemplar of the Sumerian King List at Tell Leilan, and the elaborate and
culturally rich character of Šamšī-Adad I’s inscriptions. I have suggested that
the schools of the kingdom of Ešnunna (including Meturan and Šaduppum)
might be one of the key venues through which the Babylonian stream of tradi-
tion was transmitted to Aššur. This possibility gains further credence from the
fact that traces of a school tradition that includes a royal ideological discourse
are already attested at Ešnunna during the Akkad period,50 thus testifying to
a longstanding scholarly tradition in that eastern Tigridian kingdom. This
‘school of Ešnunna’ may ultimately derive in large measure from the cultural
traditions that developed in the city state of Lagaš during the Pre-Sargonic
period. Lagaš was a powerful city-state and continued to be an important eco-
nomic center through the Old Akkadian period and into the Ur III period. The
importance and continuity of the culture of Lagaš is apparent in the adoption
of its calendar by the craftsmen’s guilds of the Ur III state.51 Similarly, the
iconography of Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures provided the model for the
later steles of King Sargon (Louvre Sb 2/6053), for Narām-Sîn’s Victory Stele,
and for the Daduša Stele, which depicts the king smiting the enemy in the role
of Ninurta. Lagaš, Ešnunna, and Aššur all share a conception of the status of
the city-ruler vis-à-vis the city god that is expressed in the title ensi₂, along
with commonalities in their royal inscriptions, particularly regarding their ex-
tensive military reports. These cultural similarities support the idea that there

scholars interpret the term as indicating a social distinction, Renger understands it as a certain
group of professionals in the temple of the goddess Baba (RlA 4, 440). I would like to thank
Gonzalo Rubio for the lexicographic information.
48 See Chapter 3.5.2.
49 Michel 2004; Barjamovic and Larsen 2008.
50 Westenholz 1974‒77.
51 Sallaberger 1999, 236.
 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars 463

was a network of scholarly communication and transmission along the Tigris

River. When the evidence from Mari is included in this picture – as attested in
the inscriptions of Yahdun-Līm – it becomes possible to delineate a network
of intense scribal and scholarly interaction and to define a northern cultural
horizon that encompassed Ešnunna, Aššur, and Mari. This interaction may
have promoted and facilitated the movement of Babylonian scholars to Aššur
and Šubat-Enlil. The contribution of the Sargonic kings to later Assyrian ideo-
logical discourse, as mediated through Šamšī-Adad I, cannot be overempha-
sized in this dynamic. It is unique in the development of intertextuality in
Mesopotamia insofar as it is the only example of an ideological discourse for-
mulated in royal inscriptions that went on to impact the production of mythic
and legendary texts rather than the other way around. The Sargonic contribu-
tion promoted the creation of a rich corpus of legends centered on the kings
Sargon and Narām-Sîn.
During the Old Babylonian period, the intertextual relationship between
the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend and one of Šamšī-Adad I’s commemorative
inscriptions represents the earliest example of the epic tradition influencing
the rhetoric of royal inscriptions, in this case with regard to the geographical
notion that the territory controlled by Sargon extended from the Mediterranean
Sea to the region of the Turukkeans. From the Middle Assyrian period onward
myth and epic formed the primary platform for the debate on kingship; the
fruits of such reflection then percolated into the royal inscriptions of the Assyr-
ian kings.
The dynamics by which epic or mythical discourse articulated particular
thoughts and concepts about the institution of kingship that were subsequent-
ly incorporated into royal ideology are apparent, for example, in the Tukultī-
Ninurta Epic. This epic – which draws on the Etana Myth – anticipates a rhetor-
ic that justifies the military campaigns of Assyrian kings with reference to the
treacherous behavior of their enemies, a rhetoric that was ultimately integrated
into Assyrian royal inscriptions.52 In addition to their use of the Standard Baby-
lonian dialect, the distinct literariness of Assyrian royal inscriptions is evident
in their emplotment, which follows the gist of the combat myth or other mythic
narratives. Further, figurative speech and intertextual literary allusions have
been noted as expressions of the scholarly voice underlying royal inscriptions
(see Chapters Six, Seven and Eight).
But it is possible go much further. The form and content of particular texts,
as well as the meaning that they gain though their relationship with other

52 See Chapter Seven.

464 The Voice of the Scholar

texts53 – as discussed in Chapter Eight – are to my mind key indicators of a

highly erudite circle of scholars responsible for the production of cultural dis-
course in general and of ideology as its subdiscourse in particular. Instead of
adhering to a Western notion of authorship,54 treating the literary qualities and
cultural sophistication of ancient Mesopotamian texts as witnesses to the voice
of the scholar appears to me to be a legitimate means of bringing the producers
of ideological discourse into the foreground.
It should be kept in mind that during the Sargonid period cuneiform writing
was still a privileged vehicle for the preservation and production of cultural
memory. Cuneiform signs are polysemic and can be read as logograms, phonet-
ic elements, or classifiers.55 Cuneiform writing, moreover, always has the po-
tential to be read logographically and can represent multiple languages simul-
taneously, resulting in a level of semantic flexibility that is particularly evident
in the fluidity marking the relationship between written Sumerian and Akkadi-
an.56 This semantic flexibility generated a scholarly mindset that was neces-
sarily adept in the production of textual interpretations and commentaries. In
addition to fostering “scribal traditionalism in the antiquarian devotion to a
script and language,”57 this scholarly mindset promoted a predilection for the
various forms of intertextuality discussed throughout this book. Cuneiform
texts transcend their plain meaning and were not written or read with only the
most obvious interpretations in mind; the intertextuality and intermediality of
text, ritual, and image serve as an inexhaustible reservoir for those seeking to
read between the lines, with reference either to the polysemy of the signs and
icons themselves or with the reference to the rich web of discursive expressions
pertaining to cultural memory.
The transmedial scope of my analysis in this book has focused primarily on
myth, royal inscription, and ritual, and has outlined the procedures for world-
construction in these contexts, revealing in the process the mythic dimensions
of the narrative way of world-making.58 The “storyworld” of the combat myth
enabled us to make “inferences about situations, characters, and occurrences

53 Bloom 1975.
54 See the discussion about hymns attributed to Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad,
Civil 1980, Black 2002, Rubio 2009, 27‒28, Lion 2011 and Brisch 2011. On authorship see further
Foster 1991.
55 Woods, 2010, 43; Frahm 2011.
56 Rubio 2006.
57 Rubio 2006, 49.
58 Herman 2009. Herman’s approach goes back to Nelson Goodman’s study of Ways of World-
making published in 1978. He defined five procedures of worldmaking: composition and de-
composition, weighting, ordering, deletion, and supplementation.
 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars 465

either explicitly mentioned in or implied by a narrative text or discourse.”59 As

such, the combat myth serves as a mental model “of situations and events
being recounted ‒ of who did what to and with whom, when where, why, and
in what manner.”60 This storyworld cuts across media, genres, and communi-
cative contexts to fashion the image of the Assyrian king and to manipulate
and communicate the experience of the institution of kingship. Although a core
of world-making procedures is common to the various media and text catego-
ries, the choice of genre retains its meaning with regard to conditioning the
reception of a particular message. In regicentric literature – including heroic
poems and royal inscriptions – and in ritual, for instance, the historical king
is introduced into a framework articulated and defined by myth. The discus-
sion of various text categories has revealed that the choice of genre is crucial
in the process of meaning-production. While the legends centered on the kings
of Akkad stylize these figures as models of kingship and are much more diver-
sified in their choice of motifs, individual kings aspired to demonstrate in their
inscriptions that they had met the cultural expectations associated with king-
ship. In other words, narrative structures functioned as carriers of meaning,
constituting content 61 and shaping the royal message. The poetic or narrative
form thus extended and concretized the meaning-production generated by
myth, while its aesthetic dimension informed its reception.
Particular choices concerning world-making procedures were made by
scholars and are already apparent in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures (Pre-
Sargonic), the victory steles of the kings of Akkad, and the steles of Daduša
and Šamšī-Adad I. Beyond the medium of the image, these world-making pro-
cedures are evident in the literary texts and royal inscriptions contemporary
to these monuments. Intertextuality between texts and intermediality between
image, text, and ritual enhanced the efficaciousness of the message that was
conveyed.
As is clear from the collections of rituals, incantations, omen reports, and
omen series that have been recovered from the libraries of scribes and scholars,
the authors or text producers of these works were concerned with the supervi-
sion of, involvement in, or simply being knowledgeable about cultic, divinato-
ry and exorcistic practices. The earlier chapters of this book demonstrate that
dividing the production of texts along ‘historiographic’, ‘literary,’ and practice
oriented lines is inappropriate. Although the educational process pertaining to
liturgical, magical, and divinatory texts might have differed from the educa-

59 Herman 2009, 72.

60 Herman 2009, 72‒73.
61 White 1987; Iser 1994; Nünning 2013.
466 The Voice of the Scholar

tional process related to the broader bureaucratic curriculum in the Old Baby-
lonian period,62 it is obvious that scholars, whether diviners or exorcists, were
responsible for scribal training and the production of texts unrelated to the
curriculum. In light of this, it must be asked whether a clear-cut distinction
between the supposedly independent school milieu of the Old Babylonian peri-
od and the purely utilitarian scribalism in thrall to the royal court that has
been posited for the first millennium can still be maintained.63 It is true that
except for the Erra Epic few new major mythical narratives were produced dur-
ing the first millennium, but many other genres of a highly literary character
were created, revealing that while scholarship was steeped in the stream of
tradition, it nevertheless retained its creativity and inventiveness and devised
new forms of expression. The libraries of exorcists in both Old Babylonian Met-
uran and in Sargonid Aššur are remarkably similar with regard to the social
standing of their owners, who were authoritative figures involved in the pro-
duction of world-making; further, the houses to which these two libraries be-
long have in common their role as institutions concerned with collecting and
producing scholarly lore (see especially texts such as the Sargon Geography
and the Weidner Chronicle in the exorcist’s library in Aššur), their work on
behalf of the palace, and their function as centers of education. Hard evidence
of a close relationship between intellectual loci of this kind and the palace is
tenuous for the early periods, but surviving texts and monuments indicate that
such cooperation was standard. The kings relied on the scholars as the authori-
tative guardians of tradition, who could shape the royal image at any given
historical moment. For the Tigridian area at least, then, the sweeping claims
made by some modern scholars – particularly those interested primarily in
the literary, lexical, and mathematical text corpus from Southern Babylonia –
concerning the independence of scholarship in the Old Babylonian period
should be reconsidered.
The chapters of this book have opened a succession of windows that are
intended to offer some insight into what a discussion of royal ideology in its
relationship to religion and cultural discourse actually entails. By adopting a
diachronic approach, I demonstrated how tropes accumulated and were re-
worked through time. The complexity that characterizes Sargonid period cul-
tural production represents the culmination of the work of scholarly circles
concerned with shaping Mesopotamian cultural discourse over the course of
millennia. This chapter has demonstrated once again that those texts, images,
and rituals that fashioned the image of the body politic of the Assyrian king

62 Tinney 2013, 589.

63 Vanstiphout 1999: 92‒93.
 Texts as the Voices of the Scholars 467

could only have been created by scholars very well versed in the various media
that constituted the cultural memory of Assyria and Babylonia. Far more than
a scholarly demonstration of erudition and skill in handling various media was
at stake, however. Anchoring a text, image, or ritual in the rich web of intertex-
tuality and intermediality created or made visible a particular truth, a truth
that connected historical reality with the mythic past and thereby sanctioned
the individual ruler as the legitimate occupant of the royal throne.
Appendix
No. 1 LKA 62

Ebeling 1949; Edzard 2004

1 [la-a-i]ṭ a-a-bi da-i-iš na-ki-ri-i-šu
2 [ba-ʾ-ir?]x i-me-ri KUR-i da-li-hi bu-lu EDIN
3 [ba-A-A-ru] dA-AŠ-šur tuk-lat-su dIM ri-ṣu-šu
4 [a-l]i-ik a-na pa-ni-šu a-šá-red DINGIR.MEŠ dMAŠ
5 ba-a-a-ru a-na i-me-ri i-ka-pu-da qab-l[u]
6 a-na qi-it na-piš-ti-šu-nu ú-sa-ha-na pa-tar-šu
7 i-iš-mu-ú i-me-re-˹e˺ i-da-ku-ku ina re-e-ši
8 pu-lu-uh-tu šá ba-a-a-ri e-li-šu-nu la tab-kàt
9 i-ma-ha-ru te-šu-ú a-a-ú šá i-si-ni-qa-a-na-ši
10 šá qe-ri-ib-ni la i-mu-ru ú-pa-ra-du pu-hu-ur-˹ne˺(coll.)
11 a-ni-nu ú-zu-ba-a-ni ina ki-pa-〈at〉 KUR-i šá-qu-ti
12 i-ma-si-ri šá ša-du-e šu-pa-ta-ni ma-a ra-ma-at
13 šá-a-ra šá ba-a-a-ri li-šá-i ki-pa-su-ma
14 ši-˹la˺-at qa-al-ti-šú e li-il-li-ka 〈ka〉-šá-da pu-hu-ru-ti
15 iš-me-e ba-a-a-ru šá bu-lu KUR-i da-ba-bu
16 šá-an-su-ku ṭè-šú-nu si-qi-ri-šú-nu pi-it-ru-du
17 ma-a〈la〉 pi₅-〈i〉 ši-ir-ʾa-an-šú-nu zi-ka-ru ma-a-la mal-du
18 a-na qu-ra-de-e šá e-li [KUR]-˹di˺ pu-tu-ú i-zaq-qa-ar
19 ni-i-li-ik šá bu-li KUR-di ˹ša˺-ga-al-ta-šú-nu ni-iš-kun
20 i-ka-ki-i-ni-i šá sa-ha-an [d]a-mi-šú-nu ni-qi
21 a-de-e-ni ú-me-šu il-tap-pa-ta pu-ha-di
22 il-ta-mar ki-ma dIM dŠá-maš i-ṣi-me-di ma-ši-ri
Rev.
23 har-ra-an še-˹lal˺-ti u₄-me ir-ti-di [x x x]
24 a-du la dŠá-maš na-PÁ-hu i-bi-ru-šu-nu an-qu-lu
25 ú-šìr-ri-ṭi lìb-bi a-ra-ti ú-na-pi-il la-ku-ti
26 ša da-nu-ti-šú-nu ú-na-ki-is ki-šá-da-ti
27 qu-tu-ru ma-ti-šú-nu ERÍN.MEŠ-šú-nu i-˹te˺-di-il
28 ša a-na Aš+šur i-ha-ṭu-ú i-me-i kar-mì-iš
29 la-za-mu-ru li-it Aš+šur da-ʾa-na ša i-tal-la- ka a-na ṣ[u-la-ti]
30 il-la-ta kib-ra-ti i-sa-at-ka-na li-i-t[ú]
31 li-iš-me ma-hi-ru u a-na ar-ki-i lu-šá-[an-ni]
 No. 1 LKA 62 469

Commentary:

Vs. 1 The participle lāʾitu normally refers to gods rather than humans, see
CAD L, 113 s.v. lâṭu. The expression dāʾiš nakirīšu, by contrast, is a typical epi-
thet of the Assyrian king, see CAD D, 121 s.v. dâšu.
The occurrence of an anaptyctic vowel to dissolve a consonant cluster is
typical of Neo-Assyrian and indicates the transitional linguistic stage of the
Assyrian language towards the end of the second millennium. It occurs several
times in this text: iṣiniqanâši (l. 9); šupatāni (l. 12); siqirīšunu (l. 16); iṣimedi
(l. 22); ūšerriṭi (rev. 3); lazzammuru (rev. 7), see Luukko, SAAS 16, pp. 102‒108;
Hämeen-Anttila, SAAS 13, pp. 34‒35. Note that according to Luukko, SAAS 16,
p. 102 “anaptyctic vowels always follow the quality of the preceding vowel.”
The word šupatāni (l. 12) seems to go against that rule, since it follows the
quality of the following vowel (šuptāni > šupatāni). Anaptyxis thus seems to
include regressive vowel dissimilation and progressive vowel assimilation: šup-
tāni > *šuputāni > šupatāni.
Vs. 2 The occurrence of ‘overhanging’ vowels (überhängende Vokale) is like-
wise typical of NA: dālihi (l. 2); iṣimedi (l. 22); ūšerriṭi (rev. 3); lazzammuru
(rev. 7), see von Soden GAG3, § 18e. Concerning these “overhanging” vowels
and their possible syntactical function, see Luukko, SAAS 16, pp. 108‒9.
Vs. 5 ba-A.A.ru must be a nominal form of the participle bāʾeru, see also AHw,
vol. 1, 97a, s.v. bajjāru. See also the fragmentary hymn of Assurnaṣirpal I prais-
ing the king as hunter, which has the writing ba-ia-ru, Frahm 2009b, no. 77
l. 8.
Vs. 6 The use of the verb suhhunu meaning ‘to sharpen (a dagger)’ is unusual;
AHw, vol. 2, 1004a suggests “to draw a dagger.” Royal inscriptions usually
have šêlu in this context, s. Tigl. RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 I 36‒37 šatammu ṣīru ša
d
Aššur kakkīšu ušaʾʾilu.
Vs. 7 Edzard 2004, 85 in his commentary on line 7 suggests that the unusual
plene writing in i-iš-mu-ú is meant to symbolize the braying of the donkeys,
but it seems that he is confusing spelling with actual utterance. Lambert, BWL,
p. 328 called this an instance of Vorschlagsvokal and regarded it as common
among Middle Assyrian scribes. Such unnecessary extra vowels in verbal pre-
fixes occur already in Old Assyrian, see Hecker, GKT, pp. 36‒37, § 23d). For
abnormal plene spellings see further Aro 1953.
Vs. 8 puluhtu kabtat generally occurs in affirmative clauses and not in nega-
tive constructions, as was observed by Edzard 2004, 85 in his commentary on
l. 8.
470 Appendix

Vs. 10 According to Edzard 2004, 83 Vs. 10, Maul’s collation shows the sign
/-ne/ after pu-hur.

Vs. 11 uzzubāni is the Assyrian form of the stative 1. Pl. of ezēbu D versus
Babylonian uzzubānu, see v. Soden, GAG § 75b; Hecker, GKT § 72a, and Kouw-
enberg 2010, p. 180.

Vs. 12 i-ma-si-ri represents a sandhi-writing immāseri for ina mēseri “in the
enclosure.”

Vs. 13 meaning according to CAD Š/2, 243 s.v. šāʾu uncertain; AHw vol. 3,
1205b has šāʾu II “laufen” D Stem, Standard Babylonian. Here I follow the sug-
gestion of A. Salonen, Jagd und Jagdtiere im alten Mesopotamien, 1974, 44,
who considers šāru to be the subject of the sentence with its final /-a/ repre-
senting an assonance intended by the author. The previous sandhi writing and
other poetic features justify such a suggestion.

Vs. 14 The change of /-št-/ to /-lt-/ is typical of the Middle Assyrian dialect.
The following verbal form ē lillika must be a vetitive as the speech of the don-
keys continues to refer to the hunter. Edzard reads ši-˹da˺-at qa-al-ti-šú e li-il-
li-ka šá DA pu-hu-ru-ti with šiddu ‘length’ instead of šilûtu ‘bowshot’ and šá DA
for šá ṭēhi “close by” following a suggestion by Michael Streck.

Vs. 15 ša būlu … dabābu is an anticipatory genitive typical of poetic texts.

Vs. 16 šansukū is a Stative 3. pl.m. with Assyrian vocalization (Babylon.: šus-

sukū). ṭēššunu exhibits consonantal assimilation: ṭēššunu < ṭēnšunu < ṭēnšunu.
si-qi-ri-šu-nu = siqru is the Assyrian form corresponding to Babylonian zikru
“utterance”.

Vs. 17 Edzard assumes a direct speech introduced by the particle mā instead

of reading ma-a-〈la〉 at the beginning by analogy with what follows in the sec-
ond half of the line. Edzard, however, cannot make sense of the line. Rather it
seems that the speech of the hunter only starts with line 19. The reading /pi₅/
for the sign NE and to assume the word pû “chaff” is problematic because it is
attested only in Old Assyrian. To assume the reading bí-〈i〉 is equally difficult
because the sign /bí-/ is so far not attested in the Genitive of pû.

Vs. 18 Foster 2005, 336 reads pu-tu linked with petû “to open” and translates
“who will make breaches”. Note that D-stem of the verb is attested for the first
time during Tiglath-Pileser I, see CAD P, 354 s.v. petû 6 i.

Vs. 19‒20 nillik and niqqi are forms of the cohortative i nillik and i niqqi as
attested in Neo-Assyrian (GAG § 81g).
 No. 1 LKA 62 471

Vs. 20 ikkakkīni is again a sandhi-writing for ina kakkīni. Although sahān

dāmīšunu looks like a status constructus I prefer to connect it with kakku in
analogy with line 6.

Rev. 23 šalaštu > mA/mB ša/elaltu is a feminine form of šalaš.

Rev. 24 With adu we have the Assyrian variant of Babylonian adi otherwise
only attested in the Neo-Assyrian dialect.

Rev. 27 lazzammur is the Assyrian Precative of the Gtn stem (Babylonian:

luzzammur), lītu is often paired with the noun danānu, mA/nA da’ānu in Assyr-
ian royal inscriptions, thus literally: “let me sing the victory and the might of
Assur.” At the end of the line Edzard prefers to follow Maul’s collation, which
reads SAL without making sense of it. Note, however, that ṣūlātu (pl. t.) “bat-
tle” is used in poetic language.

Rev. 30 issatkana is the Assyrian Gt Perf. (GAG § 30g)

Orthography, Language, and Style

The text has many paleographic features, which are typical of Middle Assyrian:
For instance BA, ZU, SU, RU, TU, LI, QU; the signs ŠA, RA are written with
four horizontal wedges instead of three (see Cancik-Kirschbaum, BATSH 4,
pp. 73‒87) Note the defective writing of double consonants, which is already
typical of Old Assyrian writing, such as i-ka-pu-da for ikappuda (l. 5), ú-sa-ha-
na for usahhana (l. 6), i-ma-ha-ru for imahharū (l. 9), ú-pa-ra-du for uparradū
(l. 10), ki-pa-〈at〉 for kippat (l. 11), ki-pa-su!-ma for kippassuma (l. 13), ni-i-li-ik
for nillik (l. 19), i-ka-ki-i-ni-i for ina kakkīni (l. 20).
Furthermore, the writings siqru for Babylonian zikru and izaqqar for izak-
kar also constitute Assyrian features (see, for instance, Luukko, SAAS 16,
pp. 75‒76).
Several phonological features are known primarily from Neo-Assyrian
texts, such as the insertion of the anatyptic or epenthetic vowel into a conso-
nant cluster, vowel harmony, full assimilation, and “overhanging” vowels.
These features probably account for von Soden’s late dating of this composi-
tion in his Akkadische Handwörterbuch. Phonological features such as the –lt-
for –št-, however, in addition to the clearly Middle Assyrian paleography, sug-
gest a Middle Assyrian date; perhaps one should date the text towards the end
of the Middle Assyrian period.
This date finds further support in the occurrence of words that are other-
wise attested only in literary texts, such as šagaštu/šagaltu and ṣūlātu, as well
472 Appendix

as the expression puhādi lapātu, which is reminiscent of the Sumerian term

lú.máš.šu.gíd designating the profession of the haruspex, and combination of
words that seem unattested elsewhere such as illat kibrāti and [lāʾi]ṭ ayyābi.
Some lexems are clearly Assyrian, such as adu for adi and siqru for zikru.
The writing izaqqar represents a mixed form with both Babylonian and Assyri-
an features. The choice of the vowel in illatu constitutes likewise a Babylonian
writing rather than Assyrian ellatu. Furthermore, the vocalization of the Stative
šansuku / Babylonian šassuku and the Precatives lazzamur and lušanni, and the
otherwise Neo-Assyrian form of the Cohortative, which uses only the Preterite
without the particle i are additional Assyrian dialectal features, although the
latter might also occur in early Standard Babylonian texts, see GAG § 81g.
In contrast to another poetic Middle Assyrian text ascribed to Tiglath-Piles-
er I, LKA 63, this composition has only one form of the hymnic-epic dialect,
which is karmiš (rev. 6).

Thematic and Poetic Structure of the Text

LKA 62 can be divided into five strophes or stanzas, which thematically deal
with the following subjects:
1. Introduction of the hunter and his plan to hunt down the donkeys
2. The recalcitrant donkeys
3. The king’s reaction and performance of extispicy
4. The military campaign and the defeat of the enemy
5. The praise of the god Assur

These strophes can be further subdivided in hemistichs, monostichs, couplets,

triplets and quatrains. This is supported by grammatical, syntactic and phono-
logical elements, as well as the use of alliterations and assonances. The conver-
gence of content and poetics justifies treating them together.
The first strophe consists of the first six verses and can be subdivided into
three couplets. The first couplet describes the hunter and follows a parallel
structure predicated on the sequence of four participles [lāʾiṭ, dāʾiš, [nāʾir] and
dālihi, each one subdividing the verse into two hemistichs.
The following two verses are also part of the titulary, which proceeds with
details concerning the divine support for the king. Both verses are nominal
sentences: the first one plays with the assonance of /a/ and /u/, while the
second one is marked by the repetition of the vowels /a/ and /i/. Lines 3 and
4 consist of synonyms given in parallel constructions: in line 4, ālik pānīšu is
complemented by ašarēd ilāni thus constituting the climax of the verse. This
 No. 1 LKA 62 473

epithet of Ninurta is also attested in LKA 63 rev. 8. This climax is stressed by

placing the name of the god Ninurta at the end of the sentence.
Lines 5 and 6 form also a couplet introducing an opposition between the
hunter and the donkeys, marked by the repetition of the vowels /a/ and /u/
for the hunter (bayyāru … ikappuda qabla / usahhana pataršu) and the repeti-
tion of the vowels /a/ and /i/ for the donkeys (ana imērī / ana qīt napištīšunu).
These alliterations would emphasize their hostile encounter by means of the
sound. Both verses are syntactically parallel with regard to the position of the
verb, which is placed at the beginning of the verse and show similarities with
LKA 63:

LKA 62 : 5‒6 ikappuda qabl[u] ana qīt napištīšunu usahhana pataršu.

LKA 63 : 6′‒8′ ikpudu … tuqumta … išēlū kakkēšunu.

Note, however, that the pairing of “sound” and “meaning” in this fashion has
been challenged by some scholars, who regard it as based on the so-called
enactment fallacy; see Barry 1980 and Terry 1999.
The positioning of the object qablu ‘battle’ and pataršu ‘his dagger’ steers
the reader’s or auditor’s attention toward the imminent event of the hunt, i.e.
the battle.
Further stylistic features of the first strophe show in various forms of paral-
lelism. The lines 1‒2 each have two couplets with a parallelismus membrorum.
The second verse (l. 2) in addition offers an antithetical parallelism by intro-
ducing the contrast between mountain and steppe, which continues in a paral-
lelism with line 1. Both verses further introduce the parallelism of hunt and war
as it is negotiated in great detail in the royal inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I.
While in the first couplets of the strophe the motives of war and hunt are
clearly separated, they completely merge in the third and last couplet of the
strophe by means of the juxtaposition of the lexemes bayyāru and qablu.
The following second strophe includes 8 verses (ll. 7‒17) and describes the
recalcitrant donkeys who resist the subjugation. This motif compares with the
insurrection and rebellion as described in LKA 63: 17′‒18′. The exact structur-
ing of the strophe is complicated as the direct speech of the donkeys starts in
the midst of line 9 continuing until line 14. The second half of the strophe
divides clearly into two couplets ll. 11‒12 and 13‒14. The couplet ll. 11‒12 is
formed by the chiastic positioning of the statives uzzubāni and rāmat as well
by the parallelismus membrorum of ina kippat šadî and immāseri ša šadê. The
analysis of the four first verses of the second strophe (ll. 7‒10) is difficult as
verse 9 starts with the direct speech in its second hemistich; on the other hand
the lines 7 and 10 have both two hemistichs forming a framework based on the
syntactic parallelism.
474 Appendix

The third strophe describing the king’s reaction toward the recalcitrant
donkeys has equally eight verses, which divide into one quatrains and two
couplets. The quatrains is built after the model ABBA, whereby the verses 15
and 18 can be read as one sentence, which, in addition, shows a synonym
parallelism in the use of the verbs dabābu and zaqāru. Line 15 stresses the
speech of the donkeys by means of its anticipatory genitive. The verses 16 and
17 with two completely parallel hemistichs form an insertion into this sentence.
Both hemistichs further use synonymous statives with their use of mala form
a chiasm.
The following couplet contains the response of the king. Both verses 19‒
20 form a syntactic unity with their use of the anticipatory genitive and the
three cohortatives nillik, niškun, and niqqi. And again our text compares with
LKA 63 by the use of rebellius speech, the plan to kill the enemy and its realiza-
tion (see LKA 63: 19′ and 24′ šagaš nakrē and hulluq nakrē ūšâ šaptēšu).
Similar to the first strophe, the following fourth strophe consists of six
verses accounting the battle and subsequent destruction of the enemy. The
text has now left the context of the fable moving into human reality with the
description of the treatment of pregnant women and babies.
The two announcements of the time šelalti ūmē and adu la Šamaš charac-
terize the verses 23 and 24 as couplet. Likewise the two following verses form
a unity based on the Tricolon ušerriṭi, unappil, and unakkis as well as on the
antithesis lakūti // dannūti. The poetical structure of lines 27 and 28 is disputa-
ble. On the one hand one could consider them as a unity based on their images
of the ‘smoke’ (quturu) and ‘like a ruin’ (karmiš). On the other hand one could
consider line 27 as the concluding verse of the battle account with verse 6
forming the theological quintessence acting as transition towards the Abge-
sang, the praise to the god Assur.
The last part consists of three verses, ll. 29‒31; with regard to its content it
is reminiscent of the introduction to the Anzû Myth representing a praise to the
warrior god Ninurta, and further the incipits of the gangiṭṭu-songs in the song
catalogue KAR 158 rev. V 12‒14 (Hecker, TUAT NF vol. 7, 54‒63) as well as of
LKA 64, a heroic poem of Assurnaṣirpal I.
The pair of the words mahru arku in the context of transmission will occur
again in the Abgesang of Enuma elish VII 157‒158 tak-l[im-tú] mah-r[u-ú i]d-bu-
bu pa-nu!-uš-šu // išṭur-ma iš-t[a]-kan ana ši-mé-e ar-ku-ti “The revelation (of
the names), which is the first one spoken before him (Marduk), he wrote down
and established (it) for posterity to hear.”
Hurowitz and Westenholz have already collected the parallels of LKA 62
with the hunting reports in the annals of Tiglath-Pileser I, which I would like
to reprint here referring to RIMA 2 for the sake of completeness:
 No. 1 LKA 62 475

LKA 62 : 2 dālihi būlu ṣēri // mugammer muʾʾur ṣēri (RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vi 57),

LKA 62 : 6 ana qīt napištīšunu // napištāšunu ušeqti (RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vi 67),

LKA 62 : 11 ina kippat šadî šaqūte // ina qereb huršāni šaqūte (RIMA 2, A.0.87.1
vii 8‒9).

The previous analysis allows for the following structuring of the text:

Strophe Lines Poetical Unit Theme

I  1‒ 2 couplet Introduction of the hunter

 3‒ 4 couplet Divine support
 5‒ 6 couplet Preparation of the hunt
II  7‒10 quatrain The recalcitrant donkeys
11‒12 couplet Their notion of security
13‒14 couplet Their contempt for the hunter
III 15‒18 quatrain Reaction of the hunter
19‒20 couplet His speech to his soldiers
21‒22 couplet Performance of extispicy
IV  1‒ 2 couplet Military campaign
 3‒ 4 couplet (Tricolon) Destruction of the enemy
5 monostich Complete wipe-out
6 monostich Theological quintessence
V  7‒ 9 triplet (Abgesang) Praise to Assur

The comparison between the poetic texts and the historiographic texts allows
for an insight into Assyrian poetics. Here the encounter of the acting parties is
presented an a dramatic way, as the enemy is represented as an active counter-
part who acts and speaks thus having a profile of his own in contrast to the
Assyrian royal inscriptions, which tend to draw the enemy as completely pas-
sive entity. The enemy and the Assyrian king appear as equal partners. The use
of imagery such as the one of the hunter sharpening his dagger to cut the
throat of the victim enforces the poetic character of the text.
The use of the motive of the inquiry into the oracles attested in later Neo-
Assyrian royal inscriptions is not yet part of the Middle Assyrian ones but rep-
resents an intertextual link with the Tukulti-Ninurta I Epic (iii = A obv. 41′ ff.)
and perhaps the Cuthean Legend. Tiglath-Pileser I only goes into battle after
the gods have indicated to him the propitious time. Owing to divine consent
the king can count on his success within no time, a motif already negotiated
in the Sumerian poem of the Curse of Akkad as well as the Cuthean Legend
determining whether the king will enter cultural memory in a positive or nega-
tive way (as Heils- or Unheilsherrscher).
476 Appendix

No. 2 Rm 2, 455 (CT 35 pls. 37‒38)

Bauer 1933, 85‒87

Rev.
 1 [… IdAN.ŠÁR-DÙ]-A šarru(LUGAL) dan-nu rubû(NUN) na-ʾa-du šá dIštar(15) be-let
tahāzi(MÈ) idi(Á) ummānāte(E[RIN.HI.A)-šú]
 2 [… Elamti(NIM.MA)]ki ina qé-reb tam-ha-ru ikkisu(KUD-su)-ma DUMU IdBēl-iqīša(EN-BA-
š[á])
 3 […]x-tu-uk lúE-la-mi-i ina kišādi(GÚ)-šú i-lu-lu-ma IdAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A
 4 a-na Ninūa(NINA)ki āl(URU) be-lu-ti-šú ha-diš i-riš-šú i-te-ep-pu-šú ni-gu-ti
 5 [ši-i]p-ru? šá IUm-man-i-gaš šar(LUGAL) māt(KUR) NIM.MAki ina mahar(IGI) IdAN.ŠÁR-
DÙ-A šar(LUGAL) kiššati(ŠÚ)
 6 [i]-duk-ma i-na giškussî(GU.ZA)-šú ú-šib IdAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A šar(LUGAL) kiššati(ŠÚ) a-na a-
mat
 7 [… ITam-mar-í]tu šar(LUGAL) māt(KUR) NIM.MAki 〈〈u〉〉 qá-du rab-ban-na-ti-šú
 8 [Ninūa(NIN]A)ki āl(URU) be-lu-ti-šú ina mahri(IGI)-šú it-tan-ga-ra-ár-ru

 9 […d]Ištar(15) i-ram-mu-šú-ma i-na i-na mi-gir lìb-bi-šú-nu it-tar-ru-šú-ma ITam-mar-ítu

10 [r]i-ṣu-ti IGIŠ-NU₁₁-MU-GI.NA ṣu-um-mu-ru šu-ú lúbārû(HAL) u ra-ban-na-ti-šú
11 [… illiku-n]im-ma ú-na-áš-šá-qu šēpē(GÌRII)-šú ITam-mar-ítu u lúbārû(HAL) ina
mahri(IGI)-šú ú-kan-nu a-ha-meš

12 […] imittu(15) u šumēlu(2,30) mazzāzu(NA) UR amūt(BÀ-ut) IdAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A šar(LUGAL)

kiššati(ŠÚ) šá dŠamaš(UTU) u dIštar(15) idi(Á) ummānāte(ERIN.HI.A)-šú illakū(GIN-ku)-
ma
13 qé-reb tam-ha-ru i-na-ru-ma iš-ku-nu dabdê(BAD₅.BAD₅)-šú-un

14 […] šīru(UZU) ga-mir ummāni(ERIN-ni) ina nīš(MU) rēš(SAG) hašî(MUR) šá imitti(15) it-
taš-kan amūt(BÀ-ut) IGIŠ-NU₁₁-MU-GI.NA
15 […]x it-ti ERIN-ni IdAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A na-ram ilāni(DINGIR.MEŠ) rabûti(GAL.MEŠ)
tāhāzu(MÈ) īpušū(DÙ-šú)-ma dabdê(BAD₅.BAD₅)-šú
16 […q]é-reb tam-ha-ru iṣ-ba-tu-nim-ma ina mahar(IGI) IdAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A DUMU.UŠ
šar(LUGAL) kiššati(ŠÚ)
17 […] IGIŠ-NU₁₁-MU-GI.NA la ṭa-ab-ti

18 [… ba-r]u-tu šaṭ-ru ina mah-ri-i ultu(TA) libbi (ŠÀ) iškari(ÉŠ.GAR) ki-i as-su-ha ana
šarri(LUGAL) be-lí-iá
19 […m]ah-ru-tu šarru(LUGAL) be-lí li-mur an-na-ati amāti(BÀ.MEŠ) šá šarri(LUGAL) be-lí-
iá
20 […] šarri(LUGAL) be-lí-iá mah-ru ana libbi(ŠÀ) iškari(ÉŠ.GAR) nu-še-rid ki? x(x) šá x
I
Tam-mar-ítu
21 […] ri-ṣu-ti šá IGIŠ-NU₁₁-MU-GI.NA il-la-ka
Edge
22 […ta]l-li-ku-ni a-na amāti(BÀ.MEŠ) šá ITam-mar-ítu niš-ṭu[r …]
23 […]-ti ilāni(DINGIR.MEŠ)-ka li-pu-[šú …]
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Indices
Subjects
Adapa motif 456
Adapa 130, 189, 196, 272, 284‒285, 303‒
304, 455‒457
administrative record 12, 106
Ahiqar 272
akītu-festival 392‒393, 404, 407, 416‒
426, 432, 438, 442‒443, 445
akītu-house 180, 319, 412, 418‒422, 424,
432
alû-demons 311‒312
anthropological theory of art 40
Anu-Adad temple 33, 410
Anu-banini rock relief 293
Aramaeans 8
Aššur-Adad 397, 404‒405
Aššur-Aššur 406
Aššur-Conqueror 397, 404
Aššur-Enlil 3, 229, 397, 404‒406, 424
Aššur-Ištar 399, 404, 406
Aššur-Lahmus 397, 404
Aššur-Ninurta 231, 405, 412, 414
Aššur-Šakkan-Tišpak 397, 404
Aššur-Tiara 397, 404
Aššur temple 1, 5, 18‒20, 33, 51‒52, 68‒
69, 88, 114‒115, 122, 127, 132, 137,
140‒142, 152, 168, 203‒204, 216,
252, 326‒327, 329‒333, 346, 351‒355,
379‒383, 385, 391, 393‒396, 403‒
404, 410‒415, 417‒418, 420, 426‒
427, 438‒439, 451
Assyrianisms 50, 276, 300, 310
Assyro-Mitannian 50
Assyro-Mitannian tablets 49, 144
astral religion 269
astralization 262, 264, 417
astroglyphs 283
astronomy 33‒34, 267, 370
Atrahasīs 208, 272, 384, 456
authority 18, 27‒28, 34‒35, 73, 104, 108,
162, 169, 170, 204, 210, 216, 220,
227, 229‒230, 239‒240, 259, 292,
302, 317, 333, 351, 357‒358, 360, 379,
390‒391, 401, 409, 414, 435, 441‒
442, 457, 459‒461
Balawat gates 177, 255
Bassetki statue 159, 402
battle of Halule 179‒180, 306‒321
beauty 208‒209, 222
birth ritual 338
Black Obelisk 425
body politic 14, 35, 210, 220, 224, 306,
390, 413‒414, 435, 440, 448, 456,
461, 466
chaîne opératoire 15, 137, 215, 281, 286‒
289, 309, 319, 321, 449
chaos 16, 83, 85, 145, 178, 227, 233, 241,
246, 250, 258‒259, 262, 279, 312,
391, 412, 419, 421, 425, 432, 434, 458
Chaoskampf 258
Chariots-of-War 412
charter myth 259, 290, 300
city gate 49, 177‒178, 189‒191, 309, 311,
386, 444
City Lament 88, 181
city wall 101, 188‒190, 192, 303, 317, 420‒
421
clay bullae 53
cleromancy 49
Club of Mesalim 238
cognitive religion 40
combat myth 16, 27, 232‒233, 235‒236,
238, 250, 259, 271, 286, 290‒291,
293, 296, 300, 304‒305, 310, 320,
391, 412, 414, 422, 426‒428, 432‒
434, 463‒465
conceptual metaphor 290
configurational knowledge 195
courtyard of Nunnamnir 439
covenant 347, 353‒354, 356, 401
cratogony 16
crown prince 35, 52, 168, 171, 203, 273,
293, 334‒336, 338, 341‒342‒344,
348, ‒349, 352, 355‒356, 358‒359,
388, 395, 412, 419, 430
532 Indices
cultic commentaries 267, 390, 425, 428‒
429, 432‒433
cultic drama 421, 432
cultural cohesion 17, 148
cultural discourse 1, 9, 13‒14, 21‒26, 29,
32, 36, 37, 40, 42, 45‒46, 54, 57‒58,
61‒62, 79, 92‒94, 101‒102, 118, 133,
142, 144. 156, 225, 274, 278‒279,
296, 305‒306, 327, 341, 369, 373,
391, 427, 429‒430, 433, 446, 448‒
449, 455, 462, 464, 466
cultural repertoire 21, 28, 129
Dais of Destinies 385, 413, 417, 420
date palm 279
diplomacy 29, 37, 299
Distanzangaben 140
divine assembly 6, 207, 261, 335, 413
divine parentage 221
divinization 225‒226
drama 391, 421, 432
dream oracle 323, 334, 340‒341
emplotment 15, 231, 238, 244, 259, 291‒
292, 296, 300‒301, 304, 320, 433,
436, 463
Enlilship 3, 141‒142, 144
Enmerkar 26, 301‒302
Entemena Cylinder 276
entu-priestess 98
eponym 47, 49, 103, 110, 123, 133‒136,
139, 163, 166, 169, 174, 226, 243,
329, 380, 457
eponym list 116, 133‒135
Etana 5, 80, 188, 196, 201‒202, 206, 296,
305, 320, 366, 368, 375, 463
ethnicity 9, 96
exorcism 34, 458
extispicy 34, 90, 253‒254, 302, 322‒323,
334, 338, 341, 360‒363, 365, 372,
376, 417, 451, 454, 458, 472, 475
fable 252‒253, 474
factuality 291, 300
fictionality 15, 291, 300‒301
fictive dialogue 323, 326, 330, 347, 351,
353, 357, 359, 395, 450
fish-man 272
fratricide 38, 324, 331, 347, 373
gallû-demons 309, 311
Gate of Royalty 417‒418
Gilgameš 23, 26, 89, 129‒130, 156, 176,
178‒179, 196, 219‒221, 271‒272, 274‒
276, 278, 301‒305, 366‒368, 375,
440, 452, 455
gināʾu offerings 379‒380
glyptic 65, 68, 198, 244, 449
gold 126, 158, 172, 212, 240, 273, 285,
318, 337, 388, 408, 446
grant 163, 171, 220
Greater Mesopotamia 41, 61
Handlungssystem 405
hand-water 400
hepatoscopy 370
heros eponymos 226, 457
hieros gamos 335
histoire événementielle 28
historical omens 322, 360, 363‒369, 373‒
375
historiola 268‒269
House of the Exorcist 131, 277, 409
humṭum-festival 122
hunt 217, 244‒246, 250‒252, 254‒255,
276, 286‒287, 425, 473, 475
hunter 58, 105, 145, 154, 156, 176, 219,
227, 239‒240, 244‒245, 247, 250,
252‒255, 287, 302, 305, 414, 469‒
470, 472‒473, 475
Hurrianization 44
hypertext 258‒259, 290, 306, 320
hyphenation 404‒406
hypotext 258‒259, 290, 306, 320
ibex 244, 254
identity 9, 20, 27, 44‒45, 66‒67, 70‒71,
96, 101‒103, 130, 189, 224, 238, 295,
305, 406‒407, 435‒436
insignia 4, 40, 80, 166, 200‒201, 206,
215‒216, 274, 424, 439, 441‒444,
446‒447
interdynastic marriage 151
intermediality 256, 307, 432‒433, 448,
450, 464‒465, 467
intertextuality 15, 27, 37, 153, 157, 306‒
321, 345, 433, 448, 463‒465, 467
 Indices 533

irrigation 19, 45, 47, 114, 199, 207, 274, Mouth-Tongue 49, 382, 388‒389
281 multiethnic 17
(h)išuwa-festival 71 music 90, 374, 433
mystery cult 386‒387
judge 57, 168, 210‒211, 216, 224, 227, Myth and Ritual school 426
272, 408‒409 mythologization 246, 261, 426
Jupiter 263‒265, 269
Nabû temple 355, 419, 451
Kalkal gate 415 Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project 11
kamānu-cakes 432 network of communication 19‒20, 29
key metaphor 16, 287 New Palace 410
king of Kish 5, 80
Oannes 272, 284
King’s Gate 246
Old Palace 33, 98, 100‒102, 167, 410‒411,
Kišite Tradition 45
438
Kurkh Monolith 293
onomastics 44
oracle collections 342‒348, 351, 353, 357‒
Lamaštu incantation 101
359, 376
letter 11‒12, 35, 37‒38, 47, 62, 66, 71‒73,
Ottoman Empire 10
95, 101, 104, 108, 119, 122, 130, 155,
158, 163, 166, 194, 212, 235, 240, 245, Palace-Without-Rival 284, 456
277, 323‒328, 330‒331, 333, 338‒ parricide 38, 422‒423, 426‒427, 430, 432
339, 342, 347, 351‒352, 354‒358, pectoral 423‒424
363, 370, 373‒376, 381, 386, 400‒ penitential prayer 131
401, 419, 450, 452‒454, 456‒457, personal god 20, 127, 444
459‒460 phenotext 259, 290, 320
Letter of Aššur to the King 323 physical integrity 222
lexical texts 26, 33, 46, 53, 63, 151, 249, Piedmont route 42, 161
450 pit 70, 427‒428
Lion Hunt Stele 58, 90, 198, 239 Pleiades 262, 266‒269
lion-eagle 55, 232‒233, 258, 443 plough 283
lion-griffin 244‒245 Political agency 15, 18
literarization 87, 89, 143, 174, 320, 345 polytheism 405
literary predictive texts 277, 357 Primeval Deities 429
primogeniture 322, 334, 342‒343, 357
liver model 242, 363‒364, 366, 368‒372
Prisoner Scenes 58, 198, 239
magnates 168‒170, 174, 318, 326, 342, propaganda 11, 13, 28, 284, 307
355‒356, 374, 415, 427‒428, 438‒441 prophecy 101, 202, 322‒323, 334, 338‒
339, 341, 346, 351, 353, 357, 359, 361,
mathematics 33, 371
370, 372, 386, 388, 395
Meal of the Covenant 401
protocôle des devins 389
meaning-production 305, 307, 465
provincial system 19, 166, 168‒169, 172,
midwife 334‒338, 384
174‒175
migration 8, 29, 31, 271
psephomancy 49
mīšaru-edicts 58
Puzriš-Dagan archive 51
Mitanni 7, 32, 48‒50, 64, 67, 70, 74, 122, Puzur-Aššur dynasty 113
144, 155, 157‒161, 164‒165, 175, 245,
247, 337, 393 regalia 210, 436‒437, 441‒443, 445‒447
moufflon 244 relief 10, 19, 40, 68‒69, 81, 83‒84, 96,
Mount Māšu 178 99, 115, 151, 222, 232, 246‒247, 255,
534 Indices
280, 282‒284, 290, 293, 306, 343,
361, 423, 425, 450
religion 6, 15‒16, 22‒23, 25, 28, 39‒40,
61, 94, 131, 145‒146, 225, 269, 386‒
387, 402, 406, 417, 431‒432, 466
ritual prescriptions 354, 382, 395, 399,
412, 422‒423, 431
ritual reports 391, 409‒410, 412‒413, 415
road system 19, 29
sacralization 85, 210
sacralizing 13, 15, 334, 441, 443
Sacred Marriage 6, 131, 225, 430, 432
Sagittarius 263, 267
salt 160, 214, 384, 399‒401, 416, 424
scepter 80, 145, 200‒201, 204, 206, 214,
220, 242, 261, 271, 439, 441, 443‒
446, 453
Schotterhofbau 100
scorpion man 178‒179
scribe 9, 12, 25, 27, 31‒33, 36, 50, 63‒64,
75, 87, 90‒91, 95, 104, 119, 136, 138,
144, 156, 248‒249, 275, 295, 307,
322, 329‒332, 345, 355, 358, 381,
419, 450, 452, 458, 462, 465, 469
sea dragon 234‒236
seal of destinies 230
secondary agent 40, 442
Šemšāra letters 66
snake dragon 234, 236
social type 224, 434
solarization 65, 217, 417, 459
Sphinx Gate 244
Stele EŞ 7847 417
Stele of the Vultures 6, 54‒55, 57‒58, 81‒
84, 91, 124, 232, 335, 336, 462, 465
stream of tradition 25‒26, 71, 74, 87, 91,
238, 286, 329, 377‒378, 449, 462,
466
šuilla-prayers 388
summodeism 405‒406
Tablet of Destinies 359, 417, 443
tākultu-ritual 48, 381, 388, 392‒394, 399,
401‒405, 407, 416, 422, 425
tax exemption 171, 229
textualization 37, 323, 353, 356‒357, 359,
377, 437, 450, 458
theomachy 426‒429, 433
tiara 29, 40, 200, 206, 271, 397, 404, 412‒
413, 415‒416, 442, 444‒446
Tigris tunnel 85‒86, 177
titulary 8, 16, 18, 48, 65, 80, 105, 113,
117‒119, 124, 127‒129, 142, 148, 150,
165, 181, 203‒204, 242, 249, 254,
271, 281, 288, 344, 472
token 53, 153
toponym 20, 68, 143, 418
trade 5, 10, 29, 42‒43, 47, 64, 72, 76, 80,
93, 96, 98, 101‒102, 104, 114‒116,
118, 121, 144, 147, 150, 155, 161, 194,
240
translatability 75, 405
translatio Graeca 404
transmission 25‒27, 42, 48, 51, 74, 91,
94‒95, 116, 118, 132, 157, 175, 276,
301, 345‒346, 429‒430, 438, 448,
463, 474
treaties 7, 12, 25, 37, 48, 74‒77, 167, 174,
296, 345, 358, 401‒402, 407
truth 17, 24, 39, 137‒138, 204, 214‒215,
291, 301, 367, 375, 397, 408, 434,
439, 458, 467
Unheilsherrscher 87, 475
Ursa Minor 444
Uruk expansion 43, 53, 149
Uruk Prophecy 357
Uruk Vase 58, 60, 91, 198, 239
Utnapištim 178, 196
victory oracle 352
victory stele, Naram-Sin 83‒85, 110, 462,
465
victory stele, Dadusa 122‒127, 462, 465
victory stele, Samsi-Adad I 122, 124, 127‒
28, 465
vizier 63, 104, 161, 164‒166, 168, 439
war 122, 145, 172, 174, 198, 215, 250‒252,
255, 262, 269, 297‒298, 331, 342,
344, 348‒349, 353, 374, 440, 473
weather god 66, 71, 109, 129, 155, 236,
365
weltanschauung 14‒16, 20, 23‒25, 34‒35,
37, 39, 42, 45, 59, 60, 88, 131, 145‒

146, 150‒151, 188, 195, 198, 209, 211,
217, 220, 269, 287, 297, 303, 309,
327, 362, 365, 369, 377, 381, 430,
436, 442‒443
wet nurse 6, 334, 336‒338, 430
Ancient Texts
Adad-nīrārī I Epic 50, 228, 247
Adapa Myth 196
Advice to a Prince 277
Angimdimma 26‒27, 31, 54, 231‒232, 234,
258, 282, 315
Alamdimmû 365
Anitta Text 160
Anzû Myth 27, 55, 231‒234, 237, 258‒260,
287, 299, 305, 443, 474
Appu story 337
Archaic List of Professions 58, 104, 198
Ashurbanipal’s Coronation Hymn 37, 145,
210, 214‒215, 217
Aššur Charter 332
Aššur’s Letter to Ashurbanipal 326, 330‒
331, 347
Assyrian King List (AKL) 102, 109, 120,
135‒137, 139‒141, 158, 226, 411, 451
Astrolabe B 27, 266
Aššur Directory 113, 405, 444
Atrahasīs Myth 208
Babylōniaká 272
Babylonian Chronicle 308, 356
Babylonian Map 176, 191‒197
bajjāru 253, 469
Banquet Stele 84, 188
Barton Cylinder 54, 84, 232, 282
Bavian Inscription 281‒282
Bull Inscription 284, 456
Calendar of Psalms and Lamentations in
the Aššur Temple 420
Catalogue of Texts and Authors 272, 457‒
458
Chronicle of Early Kings 368
Cultic Reforms and Religious Practices at
Aššur 420‒421
Curse of Akkad 88, 181, 302, 475
Indices 535
White Obelisk 255‒256, 431
winged disk 65, 146, 175, 179, 245, 293
world-making 464‒466
Zimrilim’s palace 6
Cuthean Legend 88‒89, 156, 213, 272,
274‒276, 301‒302, 305, 455, 475
Disc Inscription 128‒129
Dynastic Chronicle 357
Enki and the World Order 224, 446
Enki Myth 63
Enki’s Journey to Nippur 7
Enlil and Namzitarra 429
Enmeduranki Legend 272‒273, 387, 457‒
458, 460
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta 302
Enmešarra’s Defeat 429
Enūma Anu Enlil 262, 267, 365
Enūma Eliš 37‒38, 179‒180, 189, 196, 231,
236‒237, 260, 267, 305, 307‒309,
311‒314, 316‒320, 414, 417‒419, 424,
432, 474
Eridu Genesis 443
Erra Epic 262, 264‒265, 267‒268, 305,
308, 311, 314, 317‒320, 344, 466
Esarhaddon’s Apology 37, 299, 321, 340‒
345, 357‒358
Etana Myth 5, 80, 188, 196, 201‒202, 206,
296, 305, 368, 463
Exorcist’s Manual 34
Fictive Dialogue between Ashurbanipal and
Nabû 323, 351, 450
Fields of Ninurta 282
Genealogy of Hammurabi 139‒140, 411
Gift of Sennacherib for Esarhaddon 342
Götteradressbuch 113, 353, 382, 387, 396‒
398
Great Rebellion against Narām-Sîn 131, 288
Harem Edicts 248
Hattušili III’s Apology 339‒341
536 Indices
Inanna and Enki 4, 200‒202, 206, 272
Instructions of Shuruppak 31
Instructions of Ur-Ninurta 274
Iqqur īpuš 387
Kesh Hymn 148
King of Battle 196, 253, 305
Kumarbi Cycle 68, 426, 429‒430
Labbu Myth 237
Law Code (Hammurabi) 7, 127, 154, 213,
215, 403
Laws of Ešnunna 132
Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi 459
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave 205, 392
Lugal-e 26‒27, 54, 231‒232, 234, 258,
260, 282, 344, 438
Lugalzagesi’s Vase Inscription 147
Marduk Prophecy 357
Mari Eponym Chronicle 133‒136, 139
Middle Assyrian Laws 33, 248
Multābiltu 377
Myth of the Creation of Man and God 37
Nabû-šuma-iškun Epic 302
Narām-Sîn Epic 31‒32
Ninurta’s Return to Nippur 54
Old Assyrian Sargon Legend 74, 93, 124,
132, 143‒144, 153‒158, 384, 463
Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual 412
Royal Report of the King to the God
Aššur 323
Sargon II's Eighth Campaign 37, 298, 308,
312, 448
Personal Names
Aba-lā-īde 380
Adad-apla-iddina 34, 51
Adad-bēl-gabbe 163‒164
Adad-nīrārī II 205, 220, 252, 440
Adad-nīrārī III 168‒171, 293‒294, 381, 415,
451‒452
Adad-šuma-iṣṣur 452
Amar-girid 149
Sargon in Foreign Lands 143, 156
Sargon the Conquering Hero 154, 156
Sargon’s Geography 88
Serpent Myth 237
Song of Hedammu 428, 430
Song of Release 71‒72
Song of Silver 68, 430
Song of Ullikummi 115, 337
Šulgi B 90, 212, 264, 361‒362
Šulgi Hymn X 201
Šulgi Prophecy 357
Sumerian King List 106‒107, 118‒119, 139,
144, 199, 277, 304, 435, 462
Šumma ālu 365
Šumma izbu 365
Synchronistic King List 9, 158, 450‒451
Syncretic Hymn to Ninurta 267
The Datepalm and the Tamarisk 207‒208
The Defeat of Enutila, Enmešarra, and
Qingu 429
The Hunter 252‒254, 302
The Rulers of Lagaš 139, 199‒200, 205
Theogony of Dunnu 422
Tukultī-Ninurta Epic 14, 16, 31, 37, 137,
166, 220‒223, 228, 247‒248, 259,
262, 271, 276, 297‒298, 302, 304,
308, 311‒313, 316, 318, 463
utukkū lemnūtu 267‒268
Verse Account 284
Weidner Chronicle 87‒88, 191, 277, 368,
466
Amar-Sîn 51, 112‒113
Aplâ 452
Arik-dēn-ili 217
Arkat-ilāni 452
Ašarēd-apil-Ekur 33
Ashurbanipal 12, 35, 37, 47, 52, 88, 145,
160, 171, 174, 210, 214‒217, 229‒230,
250, 255, 257‒258, 260, 276‒277,
 Indices 537

280, 285‒286, 293, 303‒304, 321, Iammahu 70

322‒326, 330‒331, 333‒334, 341‒ Ibal-pi-El II 116, 143, 338‒339, 363, 370,
342, 344, 347‒348, 351‒361, 365, 372, 376
373‒377, 387, 394‒398, 400, 402‒ Ibašši-ilī 161
403, 409, 412, 416, 419, 423, 450‒457 Ibbi-Sîn 108, 364, 367
Asqudum 108, 130, 135, 363 Ibrium 63
Aššur-bēl-kal 205, 278, 410‒411 Iddin-Dagan 49, 130, 212‒213
Aššur-daʾʾin-apla 168 Ila-kabkabû 110, 136
Aššur-dan 380 Iluni 130
Aššur-dan II 205 Ilu-šumma 113‒114, 121, 278
Aššur-etel-ilāni 171, 273, 394, 401‒402 Ipiq-Adad II 116‒117, 120, 129
Aššur-eṭellu-mukîn-apli 342 Išme-Dagan 122, 134‒135, 336
Aššur-nādin-apli 278 Issar-šumu-ēreš 396, 402, 450, 452
Aššur-nādin-šumi 308, 343 Ititi 105‒106
Aštar-laba 106 Itti-Marduk-balāṭu 375
Audalumma 70
Kadašman-Enlil II 245
Baba-šuma-ibni 51 Kalbu 451
Bar-rakib 24 Kaštiliaš 165, 297, 302, 312
Bēl-ahha-iddina 33 Kiglipadalli of Tukriš 70
Bēl-ēṭir 452 Kirikiri 108‒109
Bēl-uballissu 454 Kiṣir-Aššur 88, 331, 391, 394, 396‒397
Bēlu-bāni 139 Kubaba 366
Bēl-upahhir 451 Kurunta 341
Bilalama 109 Kuzzi 73

Daduša 101, 116, 118, 120‒132, 134‒135,

143, 154, 156, 215, 242, 339, 363,
369‒372, 376, 462, 465
Enheduanna 82, 464
Enlil-nērārī 158
Erišum 100, 114‒115, 121, 133‒135, 140‒
142, 231, 411, 451
Esagil-kīn-apli 34, 51
Esarhaddon 12, 17, 35, 37, 52, 140, 145,
174, 176, 222, 230‒231, 260, 262,
273, 283, 293, 299, 303‒304, 321‒
325, 331‒334, 340‒361, 373, 376‒377,
394, 396, 402, 415, 419, 450, 452,
454, 456, 459
Ezbu-lēšer 380
Gabbi-ilāni-ēreš 396, 452
Gudea 107, 137, 199, 211‒212, 215, 226,
238‒242, 260, 263, 266
Lipit-Eštar 130
Lugalzagesi 79, 81, 107, 147‒149, 231
Maništušu 7, 70, 102, 112, 123
Marduk-apla-iddina II 452
Marduk-Asalluhi 444, 458
Marduk-balāssu-ēriš 33
Marduk-kabti-ilāni 421
Marduk-nādin-ahhē 9, 33
Marduk-šakin-šumi 352
Marduk-uballiṭ 33
Marduk-zākir-šumi 168
Mesannepada 150
Muršili II 340
Mušallim-Bau 452
Mušēzib 454
Mušēzib-Marduk 308, 312
Mutakkil-Marduk 169
Muwatalli 340

Hattušili I 32, 71‒72, 160, 167 Nabonidus 284, 303

Hattušili III 160, 203, 244‒245, 339‒341 Nabû-mušētiq-uddi 454
538 Indices

Nabû-šallim-šunu 329‒330 Shalmaneser I 9, 49, 74, 107, 140‒141,

Nabû-ušallim 400 159‒163, 165‒169, 177‒178, 205, 213,
Nabû-zēr-kitti-lēšir 452 242‒243, 255, 258, 279, 293, 325,
Nabû-zēru-lēšir 450, 452 327, 333, 371, 379, 394, 411, 425
Nabû-zuqup-kēnu 452 Ṣilulu 109‒110
Narām-Sîn 67, 70, 74, 80, 83‒87, 95, 110, Sîn-iqišam 132, 265
116‒121, 131, 133, 135, 142‒143, 149, Sîn-nādin-apli 380
153, 155, 157, 213, 227, 249, 288, 301‒ Sîn-uballiṭ 380
302, 305, 322, 364, 367‒369, 373, Šadānu 452
402‒403, 449, 462‒463 Šu-ilīya 108
Nebuchadnezzar I 34, 315, 375 Šulgi 71, 89‒91, 201, 211‒212, 227, 245,
Nergal-ēreš 170 361‒363, 368, 436‒437
Ninurta-apil-ekur 33, 163, 380, 411 Sulilu 109, 139
Ninurta-uballissu 33, 266 Šumâ 452
Nūr-Adad 132 Šumu-ukīn 452
Nūr-Dagan 196 Sumulael 451
Suppiluliuma I 50, 160, 203
Purra 72 Šu-Sîn 51, 65, 67, 102, 123
Puzur-Sîn 119, 136
Ṭāb-šār-Aššur 329
Qurdī-Nergal 452
Ṭāb-ṣil-Ešarra 332
Tahiš-atal 51
Rīm-Sîn 131
Tammarītu II 374‒375
Rīmuš 48, 81, 367
Rusa 298‒299 Tiglath-Pileser I 8, 19, 31, 33, 127, 166‒
167, 217, 223, 242‒243, 246‒247,
Šamaš-muštēšir 73 249‒252, 254‒255, 259, 261, 279,
Šamaš-rēša-uṣur 159 286‒287, 313, 380, 385, 449, 451,
Šamaš-šum-ukīn 293, 326, 331, 341, 347, 470, 472‒475
373‒375, 419 Tiglath-Pileser III 19, 52, 170, 174, 178,
Šamšī-Adad I 5, 7‒8, 42, 47, 69, 76, 78‒ 293, 316, 327, 343
79, 95‒96, 98, 100‒102, 109‒111, Tiš-atal 65‒67, 102, 119, 123, 155
115‒130, 132‒136, 139‒144, 152‒153, Tudhaliya IV 203, 244, 341
157‒158, 204, 215, 221, 228, 247, 338, Tukultī-Ninurta I 1‒9, 16, 18, 31, 38, 49,
370, 372‒373, 381, 393‒394, 416, 105, 112, 136‒137, 140, 143‒144, 161,
448‒449, 462‒463, 465 165‒167, 175‒176, 181, 202, 205, 213‒
Šamšī-Adad V 168‒169, 205, 330, 333, 410 214, 221‒223, 228, 236, 243, 247‒
Šamšī-ilu 170 248, 250, 259‒260, 262, 265, 271,
Samsuiluna 131, 292 273, 278‒279, 296‒297, 380, 385,
Šarkališarri 70 387, 404, 411, 417, 432, 239‒440,
Šattuara 159‒160 449, 451‒452, 459, 475
Sauštatar 244‒245 Tunip-Teššub 72‒73
Semiramis 170 Tupkiš 336‒337
Sennacherib 5, 35, 37‒38, 52, 179‒181, Tušratta 155, 158, 337
189, 230, 255, 280‒285, 288, 304,
306‒321, 333, 342‒345, 349‒350, Urad-Gula 35
354‒355, 385, 393‒396, 398‒400, Urda-Mullissi 343‒344
402‒403, 407, 409‒410, 412, 415‒ Ur-Namma 90, 240
418, 420, 423, 426, 432, 451‒452, 456 Uruʾinimgina 58, 104, 232, 240

Ušpia 140
Uššur-ana-Marduk 33
Wasašatta 159
Divine Names
Adad 32, 49, 73, 76‒77, 109, 114, 124,
126‒127, 141, 154‒157, 159, 190, 221,
235, 253‒254, 286, 365, 382‒384,
387, 397, 401, 403, 405‒406, 410,
412, 415‒416, 424, 437, 454
Allatum/Allani 71
Amaʾušumgal 63
AN.ŠÁR 38, 417‒418, 476
Anu 32, 77, 80, 119, 127, 141, 188, 190,
199, 202, 109, 210, 215, 251, 262,
266‒268, 217, 339, 358, 383‒384,
397, 401, 403, 406, 412‒413, 415‒416,
423‒429, 432, 442, 444, 446
Anunnaki 230, 400, 424
Anzû 27, 54‒55, 223, 232‒234, 238, 258‒
261, 287, 315, 428, 434, 443
Asakku 234, 258, 260, 428, 434
Aya 403
Bēl 76, 172, 190, 355, 400, 413, 419, 453,
459
Bēlat-Apum 78
Bēlat-dunāni 400, 427
Bēlat-ekallim 112
Bēlat-Nagar 65‒66, 155
Bēlet-ekalli 6, 32
Bēl-Tarbaṣi 352‒353, 398
Dagan 75‒77, 111, 128, 149, 152, 163, 363,
393, 397, 403
Damkina 397‒398, 403
Dinītu 5
Ea 32, 77, 138, 149, 186, 190, 207‒209,
221, 237, 249, 258‒259, 263, 266,
268, 272, 284‒286, 324, 386, 388,
397, 403, 417, 423‒426, 428‒429,
444, 446, 453, 456‒458
Eblaītu 403
Enki 4, 63, 149, 200, 237, 362, 446
Indices 539
Yahdun-Līm 72, 128‒129, 463
Zimrilim 6, 130, 163, 339, 363
Zumiya 163
Enlil 6, 38, 56, 76, 77, 80, 82, 84, 91, 107‒
108, 118‒119, 121, 122, 126‒128, 141‒
142, 144, 147, 148‒150, 152, 166, 171,
199, 202, 204‒210, 212‒213, 221‒222,
228‒229, 231‒232, 234, 259, 263‒
264, 266‒268, 271, 282, 298, 336,
393, 397, 401, 403‒404, 406, 418,
423‒426, 428‒429, 432, 436‒437,
442‒444, 446, 456
Gula 164, 277, 444
Haldi 324, 328‒329
Hebat 32, 71, 155
Igigi 188, 206, 230, 400, 408, 419
Inanna 4‒6, 47‒48, 57, 80, 82, 89, 91,
104, 112, 148‒150, 200‒202, 335‒336,
338, 362, 384, 387, 430, 436‒437
Išhara 77‒78, 397
Ištar 4‒7, 48‒49, 73, 76‒78, 80‒83, 94,
96, 99, 105‒106, 112‒113, 123, 144,
149, 154‒157, 159, 171, 189‒190, 201‒
204, 206, 216, 225, 255, 268, 279,
286, 293, 303, 325, 334‒341, 345,
348‒349, 351‒352, 354‒356, 374, 377,
384, 386‒389, 395‒397, 399, 401,
403, 424‒425, 427, 428, 430‒432,
439, 444, 446, 450‒451, 476
Ištaran 76, 114, 210, 212, 239
Ištar-Aššurītu 5, 6, 112‒113
Ištar-Mullissu 283, 439
Ištar-ša-Ninua 6
Ištar-ša-šamê 6
Ištar-Šauška 7, 48, 67, 69, 102, 155, 334,
338‒340, 387, 430
Kakka 397, 412, 427
Kidinbirbir 400
Kippat-māti 397, 412‒413, 415
540 Indices

Kubu 382, 384 225, 228‒234, 239, 246, 250‒251,

Kulitta 427‒428 253‒254, 258‒270, 272, 282‒283,
Kumarbi 65‒66, 68‒71, 119, 422, 426, 286, 291‒292, 296, 315, 322, 350,
429‒430 381‒383, 391, 397‒398, 405‒406,
Kusu 397, 442 408‒409, 412‒414, 426, 432‒434,
437‒438, 444, 446‒447, 449, 458,
Labbu 236, 434 462, 473‒474
Lel(l)uri 71 Nisaba 90, 147, 286
Lisikutu 427 Numušda 263, 265
Lugalbanda 23, 26, 89, 205, 219, 302, 392 Nusku 209‒210, 215, 267, 286, 388, 397,
Lugalkiginnedudu 150 400, 413, 444

Mandanu 412, 415 Pabilsag 263‒264, 267

Marduk 32, 38, 127, 189, 196, 210, 231,
234, 238, 260, 262, 264, 266‒269,
277, 286, 298, 307, 309, 311‒319,
324, 355, 368, 381‒382, 385‒386,
396, 403, 405‒406, 412, 414‒415,
417‒420, 422, 423‒426, 428‒429,
432‒434, 443‒444, 453‒454, 459,
474
Martu 77‒79
Minki 429
Nabû 172, 184, 186, 223, 271, 286, 323‒
324, 329, 351, 353, 355, 381, 386,
395, 406, 413, 419, 422, 426, 428,
444, 447, 450‒451, 453, 454
Nanaya 131, 338, 453
Nanibgal 90
Nara-Napsara 429
Narudi 400
Nergal-of-Hubšalum 78, 403
Nikkal 400
Ninagal 285, 442
Ninatta 430
Ninazu 71, 109, 403
Ningirsu 54‒57, 81, 83‒84, 137, 211, 228‒
234, 238‒240, 258, 262‒265, 266‒
267, 322, 335‒336, 436
Ninhursag 55, 149, 263, 335‒336, 436
Ninildu 442, 446
Ninkarrak 76, 78
Ninlil 229, 418, 429
Ninšubur 4
Ninurta 29, 38, 54‒55, 57, 84, 186, 190,
204‒205, 209, 210, 215, 219‒223,
Papsukkal 444
Qingu 309, 311‒312, 397, 428‒429, 434
Saggar and Zara 77‒78
Šala 382, 384
Šamaš 17, 76‒77, 121, 127‒129, 145, 176,
178, 186, 190, 202, 207, 210‒216,
254, 267‒268, 286, 296‒299, 365,
374, 383, 397, 401, 403, 406, 412,
417, 424, 437, 444, 454, 459, 460,
474
Šarrat-nipha 6
Šarru-mātīn 76‒77
Sebetti 266‒267, 311, 314, 400, 427
Šerua 214, 397, 399, 412‒413, 415‒416
Šî-labʾat 106
Šî-laba 106
Šimige 155
Sîn 17, 77, 126‒127, 149, 186, 234, 265,
267‒268, 286, 344, 397, 399, 401,
403, 406, 412, 424, 437, 444
Šulpaʾe 263‒265
Taramua 382, 384
Tašmētu 397, 413, 415, 444
Tišpak 71, 108‒109, 120, 126‒127, 131,
234‒235, 397‒398, 402‒403, 406,
434
Ubšukkinakku 422
Zababa 403, 406, 452
Zarpanītu 386, 422, 444
 Indices 541

Geographical Names
Abarsal 74‒75 Der 96, 114, 121, 193, 195, 395, 403
Adab 57 Diyala 45, 57, 71, 80, 96, 118, 121, 202
Adalur 71 Dūr Aššur-ketta-lēšir 163
Akkad 79–83, 85, 87–89 Dūr Katlimmu 161, 166
Akšak 57, 64, 150 Dūr-Yahdun-Līm 128
Alaça Höyük 244
Alalah 6 Ebla 44‒45, 53, 56, 62‒65, 71, 74‒75, 77‒
Alašiya 48, 154, 156 78, 91, 103, 191, 199, 226‒227, 232,
Amurru 78‒79, 154, 251, 360 235, 363, 436
Antitaurus 72 Ekallatum 94, 101‒102, 117‒118, 120, 124,
Apišal 364 126, 135, 152
Apum 76‒79 Elam 31, 42, 70, 74, 80, 101, 114, 160, 174,
Armenia 43‒44 179, 195, 240, 281, 309, 312, 318, 345,
Arraphe 121‒122 348, 360, 374‒377, 400
Arslantepe 43 Ellipi 352
Arzawa 7 Eluhut 72
Ašnakku 62, 72 Ergani 64, 72
Azuhinni 69 Ešnunna 9, 46, 49, 56, 64‒65, 67, 71, 92,
94‒96, 103, 107‒110, 114, 116‒118,
Babylon 1, 31, 33, 95, 114, 117, 127, 137,
120‒121, 123, 126‒132, 134‒135, 143‒
153, 158, 165, 167, 180, 190, 192, 193,
145, 198, 207, 231, 234, 338‒339,
195‒196, 243, 247‒248, 271, 277,
363, 369‒370, 372‒373, 403, 448‒
281‒282, 293, 307‒309, 311‒312, 317,
449, 462‒463
319, 342‒343, 347, 350‒351, 358,
Euphrates 8, 27, 42‒43, 62, 64, 71‒72, 80,
360‒361, 368, 385, 395‒396, 403,
416, 420, 432, 447, 453‒454, 470 95, 111, 128, 147‒148, 151‒155, 165,
Babylonia 1, 8‒9, 12, 17, 20, 27‒29, 33, 172, 175‒177, 195, 236, 393
56‒48, 57, 87‒88, 94, 101‒102, 114,
Fara 63, 148, 265, 442
135‒137, 147, 165‒166, 175, 222, 228,
234, 237, 243, 248, 271, 276, 331,
Gilzānu 177
338, 341, 343, 350‒351, 385, 392,
Girsu 4, 57, 266
403, 412, 416, 419‒421, 430, 451‒452,
Gutium 155‒156, 212
460, 466‒467
Balawat 177, 255
Hābūr 41, 45, 62, 102, 103, 177, 121, 123,
Balih 62, 161, 164‒165, 175, 451
133, 139, 159, 161‒165, 251, 379, 402‒
Boghazköy 26, 32
403
Borsippa 47, 191, 208, 403, 452‒453
Hahhum 72, 155
Bismil 72
Halule 179‒180, 306‒312, 314, 316‒317,
Bīt-Bēlti 403
319‒321
Bīt Habban 195
Hamoukar 64
Bīt Yakin 193, 195
Burundi 72 Hamrin 96, 118
Hanigalbat 157, 159, 161, 170, 344, 450
Carchemish 94, 159, 166‒167, 244, 246‒ Harran 159, 192, 251, 332, 344, 422
247 Haššum 71
Chagar Bazar 132‒133 Hatti 48, 52, 155, 158, 165‒167, 245, 250,
Çineköy 24 271, 281, 340, 447
542 Indices

Hattuša 9, 31‒32, 49, 67, 72, 160, 340‒ Nerik 203

341 Nihriya 72
Ḫurri 44 Ninet 72‒73, 102, 338
Huršanum 72 Nuhhašše 7
Nurrugum-Nineveh 123
Ida-Maraṣ 66 Nuzi 26, 164, 337, 387, 431
Igingalliš 72
Iridu 159‒160 Persia 29, 87
Pir Hüsein 85
Jazira 71, 103, 117, 158, 161, 163, 172, 175
Qabara 121‒123, 154
Kaneš 49, 87, 100‒101, 114, 134, 143, 153 Qatni 162
Karahar 65 Qraya 64
Karatepe 24
Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta 1, 7, 18, 49, 137, 167, Raṣappa 169‒170
213, 271, 278, 385, 387, 389, 397
Khorsabad 18, 52, 135, 174, 180, 184, 188, Šadikanni 162
280, 411 Šaduppum 49, 121, 143, 207, 462
Kilizi 158, 355, 403, 419, 422 Samʾal 295
Kizzuwatna 71, 166 Samuha 203, 340
Kujunjik 11, 182 Simurrum 65, 372
Kültepe 49, 71, 74, 93, 101, 109, 116, 133, Sinjar 78
143‒144, 153 Sippar-Amnanum 8, 91
Kurbail 403, 422 Subartu 44, 77‒79, 98, 398, 402
Šubat-Enlil 76, 101‒102, 117, 124, 132‒133,
Lagaš 46, 56‒58, 74, 76, 80‒81, 104, 107, 139, 142, 144, 152, 463
147, 150, 198‒199, 210‒212, 226, 231, Šubria 325, 331, 347, 354, 359
238‒240, 263, 276, 305, 335‒336, Sudu 159
448‒449, 462 Sūhu 159
Lake Urmia 177 Sultantepe 394, 452
Lake Van 177 Šuruppak 199, 272, 274
Laqê 170 Susa 31, 121, 193, 195, 375
Larsa 4, 95, 114, 131‒132, 263, 403 Syria 6, 9, 14, 27‒28, 31‒32, 41‒42, 44‒
Lullubu 83 45, 47‒48, 53, 62, 66, 71, 93, 96,
102‒103, 118, 122, 144‒145, 155, 160,
Mari 5‒6, 9, 45‒47, 50, 62‒63, 66, 71‒72, 164, 166, 170, 172, 174‒175, 181, 199,
77‒78, 93‒96, 102, 108, 110, 114, 229, 236, 334, 363, 436
118‒121, 123‒124, 128‒130, 132‒136,
139, 142, 144, 152, 159, 163, 186, 235, Ṭābētu 162‒164
337‒339, 346, 363, 366, 370, 372, Taʾidu 159, 161
384, 386, 389, 400, 402‒403, 411, Tall Umm ʿAqrēbe 161
416, 448, 463 Taurus 42‒43, 72, 96, 166, 269
Meturan 91, 121, 130‒132, 134, 462, 466 Tell Barri 78
Mount Bišri 79 Tell Bdēri 163
Muṣaṣir 324, 328 Tell Beydar 42, 45, 62‒63, 103
Tell Brak 42‒43, 48, 62‒66, 75, 91, 98,
Nairi 177 103
Nebi Yunus 182 Tell ed-Der 91
Nerebtum 121, 124 Tell Huēra 42, 44, 70

Tell Leilan 70, 76, 78, 103, 106, 118‒119,
132, 139, 144, 401, 462
Tell Mozan 64, 103
Tell Rimah 132, 170, 293‒294
Tell Taynat 140, 354
Tell Tuba 324
Terqa 64, 77, 133, 163, 236
Tigunānum 72‒74, 92, 144, 157
Til Barsip 165, 293, 295
Tua 403
Tukriš 70, 152‒154, 156
Tunip 71
Ṭur-ʿAbdin 43–44, 64, 70, 72, 143, 161
Turkey 43‒44
Tuttul 62, 75, 77, 132‒133, 149, 165, 403,
411
Ugarit 26‒27, 31, 48, 66, 75, 77‒78, 226‒
227, 236, 276, 429
Umma 51, 55, 57, 74, 76, 80‒81, 95, 147,
210, 239, 276
Ur 23, 42, 44, 48, 51, 57, 65‒67, 71, 82,
84, 88‒92, 94, 98, 101‒102, 106, 108,
Scholars
al-Rawi, Fadhil N. H. 277, 337, 372
Alster, Bendt 4, 31, 54, 83‒84, 153, 156‒
157, 232, 272, 274, 282
Assmann, Jan 16, 75, 404
Bahrani, Zainab 10‒11, 30, 55, 60, 83, 85
Barthes, Roland 306‒307
Bloom, Harold 307, 464
Blumenberg, Hans 24, 39, 290
Borger, Rykle 160, 252, 260, 286, 325, 349
Buccellati, Giorgio 41, 43‒44, 62‒65, 68,
70, 81, 336, 370
Burkert, Walter 39, 258, 290, 386
Cavigneaux, Antoine 123, 127, 130‒131,
153, 156, 263
Charpin, Dominique 5, 41, 46, 58, 72, 76,
94, 95, 101, 108, 110, 116‒118, 120‒
123, 130, 132, 142‒143, 152, 211‒212,
226‒227, 363, 370, 373, 393, 401
Cifola, Barbara 8, 103, 244
Indices 543
110, 112‒114, 117‒120, 123, 147, 149‒
151, 158, 181, 198‒199, 211‒212, 226‒
227, 240, 245, 249, 263‒265, 272,
282, 302, 314, 322, 335, 360, 363,
366, 375, 403, 436, 462
Urartu 20, 37, 177, 193, 195, 242, 298, 312,
325‒326, 328, 331, 348, 354, 403
Urkeš 42, 44, 61‒71, 79, 91, 103, 119, 155,
336
Uruk 4, 23, 43‒44, 52‒53, 57‒60, 63, 80‒
82, 89, 91, 96, 104, 147‒150, 198,
202, 219, 231, 239, 275, 302‒303,
335, 338, 351, 358, 400, 403, 420,
436, 442, 444, 449
Waššukanni 159
Zabalam 403
Zagros 42‒43, 44, 118, 156, 176
Zalpar 72
Zamua 177
Zinçirli 293, 295
Ziyaret Tepe 236‒237
Cooper, Jerrold S. 14, 25‒27, 31, 47, 53‒54,
57, 74, 83, 88‒89, 136, 181, 199, 210,
227, 232, 240, 260, 302, 335‒336,
366, 429
Dalley, Stephanie 168, 170, 338, 392, 422
Dassow, Eva von 44
Deller, Karlheinz 69, 96, 122, 168, 255,
271, 410, 415, 427, 431
Dercksen, Jan Gerrit 100‒101, 114, 121,
143, 153‒156, 158
Ebeling, Erich 252‒253, 384, 386, 420
Edzard, Dietz O. 58, 74‒75, 77, 104, 166,
211, 215, 239‒241, 252, 260, 263,
469‒471
Eisenstadt, Shmuel 21‒22, 37
Eliade, Mircea 24
Engnell, Ivan 13
Fales, F. Mario 8, 11‒12, 161‒162, 164, 168,
172, 174, 192, 186, 328, 375
544 Indices
Favaro, Sabrina 194
Forest, Jean-Daniel 30
Frahm, Eckart 11, 178, 255, 285, 304, 342‒
343, 356, 376, 386, 410, 412, 417‒
418, 420, 452, 458, 464, 469
Frame, Grant 11, 454
Frankfort, Henri 13, 15, 234, 279, 432
Frazer, James 13, 225, 426, 432
Fuchs, Andreas 11, 18, 170, 178, 186, 189‒
190, 332
Gadd, C. J. 13, 279
Genette, Gérad 39, 258‒259, 290, 306,
320
George, Andrew R. 1, 4, 72‒73, 91, 94,
178, 184, 190, 192, 196, 230, 240,
266, 276, 303, 316, 382, 396, 407,
417, 420, 447, 454
Glassner, Jean-Jacques 4, 47, 57, 88, 106‒
107, 134‒135, 151, 199‒200, 364, 366,
368, 371, 461
Gramsci, Antonio 24
Grayson, A. Kirk 9, 11, 88, 121, 135, 158,
170, 183, 249, 252, 277, 300, 307‒
308, 356‒357, 366, 368, 450
Greenblatt, Stephen 21, 37, 39, 306
Gumbrecht, Hans 38‒39, 290, 441
Haas, Volkert 49, 160, 388, 428
Hurowitz, Victor 49, 247, 249, 250, 252,
313, 474
Iser, Wolfgang 39, 291, 300‒301, 465
Jacobsen, Thorkild 13, 336, 390, 422, 443
Johnson, Marc 39, 290, 321
Kelly-Buccellati, Marilyn 41, 43, 44, 64,
68, 70, 336
Labat, René 13, 387, 432
Lakoff, George 39, 290, 321
Lanfranchi, Giovanni B. 14, 24, 325, 327,
330, 333, 352, 417‒418, 455
Leroi-Gourhan, André 286
Leach, Edmund 426
Leichty, Earle 145, 325, 342, 344, 347, 354,
365, 454
Levine, Louis D. 19, 327, 329, 331
Lincoln, Bruce 16, 23‒24, 40, 197, 290,
434, 441, 443, 446, 460
Liverani, Mario 8, 10‒12, 19, 23, 28‒30,
47, 58, 87‒88, 93, 103, 143, 145, 149,
153, 164, 176, 181, 244, 288, 291,
304, 369, 404
Livingstone, Alasdair 209, 214, 285, 325‒
326, 351, 390, 409, 420, 426, 438,
455
Machinist, Peter 1, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18, 20, 27,
31, 38, 89, 166, 174‒175, 196, 204,
213, 221‒222, 228, 242, 249, 252,
259, 297, 319, 418, 450, 458‒460
Maul, Stefan, M. 12, 33‒34, 162‒164, 252,
258, 260‒261, 331, 363, 379‒381,
391, 409, 414‒415
Mauss, Marcel 286, 292
May, Natalie Naomi 255, 290, 306, 427,
433
Meinhold, Wiebke 6, 48, 78, 106, 112‒113,
388
Menzel, Brigitte 113, 115, 203, 216, 328,
330, 353, 382‒383, 386‒388, 409‒
410, 427, 444
Michalowski, Piotr 9, 21‒22, 25, 53‒54,
63, 71, 74, 88, 90, 93, 106, 112‒113,
118, 131, 139, 151, 191, 198, 225, 227,
240, 289, 336, 357, 361, 363, 366‒
367, 411, 455
Miglus, Peter 98, 100, 124‒125, 141‒142,
411, 439
Millard, Alan R. 135, 141, 169, 192, 194
Nigro, Lorenzo 81‒82
Oppenheim, A. Leo 25‒26, 279‒280, 288,
298, 324, 327‒328, 330, 386‒388
Oshima, Takayoshi 153, 156‒157, 364‒365,
371
Parpola, Simo 11‒12, 34‒35, 169, 194,
204, 230, 330‒333, 342‒348, 352‒
358, 386, 388, 396, 405‒406, 424‒
425, 439, 451, 454
Pfister, Manfred 307, 309
Porter, Barbara Nevling 13, 279, 293, 295‒
296, 342‒343, 394
 Indices 545

Reade, Julian E. 28, 30, 52, 167, 189, 255‒
256, 279, 283, 293
Renger, Johannes 11, 93, 128, 203, 209,
292, 319‒320, 462
Riffaterre, Michael 306‒307, 310
Robson, Eleanor 12, 26, 91, 451‒452
Rochberg, Francesca 262‒263, 361, 376
Rüsen, Jörn 39, 304
Sasson, Jack 128, 276, 303, 339
Siddall, Luis R. 135, 168, 170‒171
Sonik, Karen 16, 238
Steinkeller, Piotr 14, 44‒46, 104, 106, 147,
149, 199‒200, 207, 229, 335‒336
Tadmor, Hayim 11‒12, 28, 93, 122, 168‒
170, 178, 216, 242‒244, 288, 307, 316,
323, 327‒328, 332‒333, 340, 342‒
344, 358, 364, 371, 409, 448, 454
Todorov, Tzvetan 290
van der Toorn, Karel 54, 345‒346
van de Mieroop, Marc 5, 37, 93, 117, 133, 147,
153, 155, 188‒189, 191, 196, 198‒199
Veenhof, Klaas 49, 93‒94, 96, 104, 106,
116, 119, 121, 133‒135, 143, 153‒155
Veldhuis, Niek 26, 54, 63, 91, 249, 357,
365, 376
Weissert, Elnathan 26, 37, 93, 179‒180,
307, 312‒313, 316
Westenholz, Joan Goodnick 5, 32, 78‒81,
85, 87, 98, 102, 131, 143, 150, 153,
156‒157, 211, 213, 247, 249‒250, 252‒
253, 275, 301‒302, 313, 338, 369,
384, 386, 474
White, Hayden 39, 231, 238, 289, 291‒
292, 300‒301, 465
Wilson, John A. 13
Winter, Irene 28, 30, 47, 55‒56, 83‒84,
107, 179‒180, 220‒222, 224‒225,
229, 232, 273‒274, 276, 278‒279,
293, 414
Zettler, Richard 67, 123, 194

Words and Phrases (by language)

Akkadian
abarak Tiʾāmtim 235 bīt abusāte 382‒383
abat Ištar 388 bīt ālim 101
abat šarri 216 bīt Dagan 409‒415
abūb tamhari 260 bīt ēqi 49, 387, 389, 431‒432
abūbu 260 bīt hamri 49, 382‒383
āšip šarre 9, 451 bīt haṭṭi 447
awât naruʾāʾim 104 bīt hilāni 52
bīt hurše 410
bāb burumme 418 bīt kimti 410
bāb harrān šūt dEnlil 418 bīt labbūni 439
bāb kamṣū dIgigi 419 bīt majāli 431
bāb mulereqqi 418 bīt nathi 255, 431
bāb nēreb dIgigi 419 bīt salāʾ mê 445
bāb šarrūti 418 bīt šalīme 382‒383
bāri šarre 451 bīt tapšuhti 410
bārî šarri 248
bartum 364 dabāb lā kitti 242
baštu/baltu 220 dabāb sarrāti 242
bēl pāhete 161‒162 dandannu 262
546 Indices

dannatu 229, 316 līmu 73

dâšu 261, 469 lišān lemuttim 242
dimtu 164 lisānu rēštu 329
dunnu 164, 422 lullû 209
lumaššū 189
egi 201, 387
ekdu 262, 316 maddattu 380
en(i) 66 malāku 209
entašši 66 māliku 209, 262
ēqu 387 manû ana/itti 174
eršu 169, 271, 273 manzāzu 364, 371
eṭemmu 50 mār šarri 248, 343, 358
eṭû 365 marratu 196
mašennu 168
gillatu 297 mašmaššu 248, 444
melammu 220, 262, 265, 445
hajjāṭu 50
mēsu 446
halṣ/zu 50
mūdû 273
hasīsu 272
mukallimtu 365
hassu 273
mukīl appāte 422
Illilūtu 166 mulmullu 262, 317
ilū darsūte 426 muntalku 273
ina šurru šangûtīya 204, 242‒243 mušamqitu 262
inhu 382‒384 mušlālu 114, 382
išippu 202 muššuli ša ili 460
iškar bārûti 360, 365, 376 muštemki mātim 109
iššiʾakku 106‒108, 111, 203, 217, 231
nāgir ekalli 168
itpēšu 273
nagû 196‒197
kabāsu 261 nāhiru 251
kakku 364, 377, 455, 471 nāmurtu 164
kalappu 412 naplastu 364, 371
kanwarta 96 naptanu 392
karšu ritpašu 285 nēmequ 272
kāšidūti 412‒413 nišīt Aššur 213
kaskasu 371
kibrāt erbettim 146‒147, 151, 179 padānu 365, 371, 377
kisal sidir manzāz dIgigi 419 palāšu 317
kispum 142 palû 243
kittu 16, 137‒138, 211, 215, 274, 299, 376‒ parak šimāte 385, 413, 419
377, 458 paridaiḏa 280
kulūlu 439 parṣu 4
kuzbu 220 pašīš Anu 80
pašuqtu 297
lapātum 133 piriltu/pirištu 386
lēʾû 273 pirišti Ištar 388
lemuttu kapādu 242 pitqudu 273
limmum 103 puhur ilāni 413, 415
 Indices 547

qadištu 382‒384 sartinnu 168

qaštu 316, 424 šaṭārum 133
qēpu 162, 169, 172 ṣâtu 365
qerītu 393 šêlu 313, 469
qurdu 248, 253 šērtu 297
quršu ša dMullissu 412 šībūtu 103
ṣillu 460
rab gināʾe 380 šiluhlu 50
rab muggi 169 šinnat apkalli Adapa 285
rab ša rēši 168‒169 šīr ilāni 221‒222
rab šaqê 168 šīr ili 209
rābiṣu 50 šīru 459, 476
rēʾî nišī 213 šitassûm 133
rēʾûtu 146, 210 šiṭir burumme 189, 418
rēš hameluhhi 439 ṣūd pāni 453
rīhātu 35 sukallu rabiʾu 161, 166, 172
rubāʾum 103 šukūdu 262, 408
ruddu eli 174 šulmu 353
šuškallu 260
ša qurbūti 169, 172
šadal karše 273 tamītu 365
šakin Enlil 80, 118‒119 tamlû 439
šakin ṭēmi 453 tamšīl ili 209
šakkanakku 319, 363 tamšīlu 209, 459
šaknu 122, 174, 204, 228 têrētum 123, 338
ṣalam dEnlil 222 ṭuppi adê 354‒355
salīmu 16, 215, 259 ṭuppi ilāni 371
šalummatu 210 ṭuppu 345‒346, 358, 380
šamāʾum 133 ṭupšar šarre 9, 33
šangû 20, 52, 138, 202‒205, 210, 215, 217, turru ana 174
328, 333, 382‒385, 387‒389, 392, turtānu 165, 168, 170
421, 427, 438‒440, 442, 444, 452
šangû rabiu 203 uʾiltu 345‒346
šangû šaniu 203 ummân šarri 9
sapānu 314, 316 ummânu 33, 448, 450
šāpiru 319 urtu 277
šar kibrāt arbaʾi 165 ušaru 425
šar kiššati 3, 5, 18, 118, 120, 165, 175, 202
šar māt Hanigalbat 161, 170 (w)aklu 106, 319
sarāru 198
sarru 242, 298 zabardubbû 51
548 Indices

Sumerian
a.ma.uru₅ 260 gišbun 392

dub.sar 32, 63 išib 201‒202

é.gal.me.šár.ra 1, 5, 7 lagal 200

é.gišgidru 447 lugal 108, 119–120, 127, 148–150, 199, 211
Egišhurankia 396
maš pà 362
Ekur 205, 258‒259, 261, 316, 436, 446
me 200–202, 206
é.kur.me.šár.ra 1
é.lugal.umun.kur.kur.ra 3 nam-dingir 200
Emašmaš 123, 395 nam-en 150, 200
é.me 4 nám-éšda 58, 104
é.me.bir.ra 4 nám-GIŠ.ŠITA 58, 104
é.me.dInanna 4 nam-lugal 107, 148, 150, 199‒201, 443
é.me.galam.ma 4 níg-erim2 265
é.me.kìlib.ba.sag.íl 4 níg-zid 265
é.me.kìlib.ur4.ur4 4 nu-gig 384
Emenue 122‒123
SAG.KAL 262
ensi2 63, 67, 106‒108, 111, 118‒120, 150,
šuškal 260
152, 198‒200, 229, 231, 393, 462
Esagila 307, 309, 395, 403 UR.SAG 262
Ešarra 4, 205, 346, 353, 398
éš.bar 362 za3.ah.li 160

Hurrian
ewri 70 hassihlu 50
gelzuhlu 50

Index Locorum (Texts)

ABC, chronicle no. 21 158 Chic. Pr. v 18‒19 311
Angimdimma 52‒77 315‒316 Chic. Pr. v 28‒30 312
ARM 1 50 416 Chic. Pr. v 31‒37a 309
ARM 4 21:8 400 Chic. Pr. v 55‒57 312‒313
ARM I 37:19‒28 143 Chic. Pr. v 62 313
ARMT 10 43 337 Chic. Pr. v 66‒67 313
ARMT 10 92 337 Chic. Pr. v 67b‒69a 314
ARMT 26 196 101 Chic. Pr. v 69b‒73 316
ARMT 26/1 no. 192:16 338 Chic. Pr. v 77 316
Chic. Pr. v 78‒79 317
BM 98496 138 Chic. Pr. v 80‒81 317
Chic. Pr. v 82b‒vi 1 318
CH i 51 213 Chic. Pr. vi 3 316
Chic. Pr. v 18 309 Chic. Pr. vi 3‒5 318
 Indices 549

Chic. Pr. vi 24‒35 311 KAH 117‒119 116

CTN 2 no. 229 330 KAH 122 KAR 117+118+119 117
Cuthean Legend (Standard Babylonian KAR 139 49, 386‒387, 389
Version) 149‒180 274‒275 KAR 154 382‒384
KAR 158 384
EA 25 iii 62 337 KAR 158 rev. iii 13‒14 248
Ean. 1 iv 9‒12 336 KAR 158 rev. V 12‒14 474
En. El. I 140 317 KAR 173 417
En. el. I 21 313 KUB 15.35 +KBo 2.9 48
En. el. ii 146, 148 261 KUB 27.38 70
En. el. II 113 313
LAPO II 672 123, 338
En. el. IV 30‒31 316
LAS I no. 196 obv. 14‒rev. 6 460
En. El. IV 34‒41 317
LAS I no. 228 obv. 18‒19 459
En. El. IV 50‒54 314‒316
LKA 62 253‒254, 308, 311, 313, 468‒475
En. el. iv 82 309
LKA 63 308, 311, 472‒474
En. el. IV 82 312
LKA 63:6′‒7′ 313
En. el. IV 92 313
En. El. IV 100 317 MARV 5 1 380
En. el. IV 115‒18 309 MARV 5 14 380
En. el. IV 116‒117 311 MARV 5 2 380
Erra I 115 317 MARV 9 9 380
Erra i 173‒174 317 MARV 9 12 380
Erra I 175 311
Erra I 185 311 ND 1120 330
Erra I 34 314
OIP 2, 79 f. ll. 5‒13 281
Erra I 36 316
Erra I 67 311 RIMA 1, A.0.11.6:22‒31 159
Erra IV 16 317 RIMA 1, A.0.27.1 110
Erra IV 34‒35 319 RIMA 1, A.0.32.1:1‒13 113
ETCSL 1.1.4: 26‒32 7 RIMA 1, A.0.32.2:30‒48 278
ETCSL 4.80.2: 1‒3 148 RIMA 1, A.0.32.2:30‒65 114
RIMA 1, A.0.33.1 114
FAOS 5/1 Ent. 79 iii 10‒vi 6 58, 104 RIMA 1, A.0.33.1:35‒36 231
FAOS 5/1 Ukg. 4‒5 58, 104 RIMA 1, A.0.33.10:11‒13 141
FLP 1674 339 RIMA 1, A.0.39.1: 52‒54 141
RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:5‒6 152, 393
Gilgameš Epic (Standard Babylonian RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:73‒87 153
Version) 1‒28 275‒276 RIMA 1, A.0.39.1:132 127
Gilgameš Epic I 30 ff. 219 RIMA 1, A.0.39.10 110
Gilgameš Epic IX 45 178‒179 RIMA 1, A.0. 39. 1001 121, 123
Gilgameš Epic X 79‒82 178 RIMA 1, A.0.39.2 i 7‒25 123
Gilgameš Epic XI 141 196 RIMA 1, A.0.39.7 393
RIMA 1, A.0.40:12‒13 136
Hazor 17 365 RIMA 1, A.0.73.1‒2 158
RIMA 1, A.0.75.1:14‒17 217
IAS no. 278 63 RIMA 1, A.0.76.1:13 159
IM 85441 372 RIMA 1, A.0.76.1:8‒11 159
550 Indices

RIMA 1, A.0.76.22:55‒60 159 RIMA 2, A.0.100.5:134 205

RIMA 1, A.0.76.27 393 RIMA 2, A.0.101.1 I 1‒9a 261
RIMA 1, A.0.76.27 and 28 107 RIMA 2, A.0.101.2:40 205
RIMA 1, A.0.76.28 394 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30 188
RIMA 1, A.0.76.3:1 159 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30:25‒30 188
RIMA 1, A.0.77.1 140 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30:69‒78 408
RIMA 1, A.0.77.1:22‒41 258 RIMA 2, A.0.101.30:84 205
RIMA 1, A.0.77.1:46‒51 160 RIMA 2, A.0.101.31:13‒15 273
RIMA 1, A.0.77.1:56‒72 161 RIMA 2, A.0.102.16:341′ 205
RIMA 1, A.0.77.25‒27 394 RIMA 3, A.0.102.6: iv 40 205
RIMA 1, A.0.77.26‒27 107 RIMA 3, A.0.102.8:24‒40 177
RIMA 1, A.0.78.1:16‒18 176 RIMA 3, A.0.103.1: i 39‒44 168
RIMA 1, A.0.78.5‒14 165 RIMA 3, A.0.103.1: ii 16b‒34a 169
RIMA 1, A.0.78.5:79 165 RIMA 3, A.0.103.1:29‒32 205
RIMA 1, A.0.78.11: 82‒86 5 RIMA 3, A.0.104.6 170
RIMA 1, A.0.78.12 5 RIMA 3, A.0.105.3 325
RIMA 1, A.0.78.15 5 RIMA 3, A.0.104.2001 170
RIMA 1, A.0.78.22 278 RIMA I A.0.78.22‒25 1
RIMA 1, A.0.78.22:51 1 RIMA I, A.0.73.3: 26‒36 160
RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:1‒9 202 RIME 1, E1.9.3.5 v 23‒vi 5 150
RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:3‒4 213 RIME 1, E1.13.5.1:2 150
RIMA 1, A.0.78.23:114 1 RIME 1, E1.14.14.2:3 150
RIMA 1, A.0.79.1 278 RIME 1, E1.14.20.1 148
RIMA 1, A.0.86.1:8 261 RIME 1, E1.14.20.1:3‒5 148
RIMA 1, A.0.1001.1 106 RIME 1, E1.14.20.1 i 15‒16 107
RIMA 1, A.0.1002.2001 112 RIME 1, E1.14.20: i 4‒5 108
RIMA 1, A.0.1003.2001 112 RIME 1, Ur-Nanshe E1.9.1.17 iii 3‒6 362
RIMA 2, A.0.78.3:16‒25 251 RIME 1, Ur-Nanshe E1.9.1.32 iii 1‒3 362
RIMA 2, A.0.78.4:67‒71 251 RIME 2, E2.0. 0. 1005 112
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 i 36‒37 252, 313, 469 RIME 2, E2.1.1.1 150
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vi 55‒84 251 RIME 2, E2.1.1.1:2 107
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vi 57 475 RIME 2, E2.1. 3. 2002 112
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vi 67 475 RIME 2, E2.1.4.3 iii 15‒18 85
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vii 4‒16 254 RIME 2, E2.1.4.3 iii 27 85
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vii 8‒9 475 RIME 2, E2.1.4.8 ii 1′‒5′ 85
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vii 17‒27 279 RIME 2, E2.1.4.10 402
RIMA 2, A.0.87.1 vii 36‒41 254 RIME 2, E2.4.1.1 94
RIMA 2, A.0.87.4:3 261 RIME 2, E2.11.4.28:9‒13 85
RIMA 2, A.0.87.10 71 ff. 279 RIME 3, E3/2.7.3.1 66
RIMA 2, A.0.89.2:29′ 205 RIME 4, E4.2.8.7 132
RIMA 2, A.0.89.7:iv 1 205 RIME 4, E4.2.9.6 132
RIMA 2, A.0.89.7: v 20‒31 278 RIME 4, E4.2.11.1 132
RIMA 2, A.0.98.1:68 205 RIME 4, E4.5.2.1 109
RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:5‒10 220 RIME 4, E4.5.3.3 109
RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:19 252 RIME 4, E4.5.5 109
RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:21 252 RIME 4, E4.5.6.2 109
RIMA 2, A.0.99.2:122 205 RIME 4, E4.5.7.2 109
RIMA 2, A.0.100.3′: 5′ 205 RIME 4, E4.5.19.1 124
 Indices 551

RIME 4, E4.5. 19. 2015 130, 363 SAA 3 no. 40:5 268
RIME 4, E4.5. 20. 2010 363 SAA 3 no. 40:10 414
RIME 4, E4.6.8.2 129 SAA 3 no. 40 rev. 16 415
RIME 4, E4.6.8.2:60 129 SAA 3 no. 41 330
RIME 4, E4.6.8.2:99‒107 129 SAA 3 nos. 42 and 43 330
RIME I, E.1.9.9.1 vii 29‒viii 4 56 SAA 3 nos. 44 and 45 330
RINAP 3/1, 17‒19 178 SAA 3 no. 44 347
RINAP 3/1, 19 183 SAA 3 no. 44: 3‒4 326
RINAP 3/1, no. 3: 34‒36 189 SAA 3 no. 44: 3‒10 326
RINAP 3/1, no. 22 307 SAA 4 nos. 76‒79 352
RINAP 4 no. 1 342, 347 SAA 4 no. 79 352
RINAP 4 no. 1 i 8 343 SAA 4 nos. 139‒148 356
RINAP 4 no. 1 i 21‒22 349 SAA 4 nos. 149‒182 356
RINAP 4 no. 1 i 72‒79 349 SAA 7 nos. 49‒52 454
RINAP 4 no. 1 ii 1‒11 324 SAA 7 nos. 148‒157 392‒393
RINAP 4 no. 1 ii 18‒19 273 SAA 8 no. 333 459
RINAP 4 no. 1 ii 30‒39 37 SAA 9.3 354‒355
RINAP 4 no. 13 1‒3 273 SAA 9 3:4: ii 35‒iii 12 356
RINAP 4 no. 48:24 273 SAA 9 no. 1:10 219
RINAP 4 no. 48:41 332 SAA 9 no. 1:10: vi 1‒12 349
RINAP 4 no. 48:72b‒79a 454 SAA 9 no. 1:2:30′‒35′ 349
RINAP 4 no. 57 140 SAA 9 no. 1:8:12‒21 349
RINAP 4 no. 57 i 1′‒8′ 17 SAA 9 no. 2.2:15′‒19′ 350
RINAP 4 no. 57 vii 26‒30 415 SAA 9 no. 2.3: ii 1‒19′ 350
RINAP 4 no. 77:45‒49 456 SAA 9 no. 2.3:24′‒27′ 350
Rm 2, 134 373, 375 SAA 9 no. 2.4 348
Rm 2, 455 373‒374, 476 SAA 9 no. 2.4:12′‒17′ 350
RS 24.274 78 SAA 9 no. 3.2 347‒348
RS. 17.146 rev. 49 = PRU IV, 157 pl. 20 77 SAA 9 no. 3:2:i 28‒ii 8 352
Rutten, RA 33, no. 3 364 SAA 9 no. 3.3 347
Rutten, RA 33, no. 6 364 SAA 9 no. 3.3:ii 10‒27 353
SAA 9 no. 3.4 401
SAA 2 no. 3 342 SAA 9 no. 3:9‒11 346
SAA 2 no. 6 230, 402 SAA 9 no. 5:1 345
SAA 3 no. 3 323 SAA 9 no. 7:1 345
SAA 3 no. 3:10 395 SAA 9 no. 8:1 345
SAA 3 no. 11 215, 354, 438 SAA 10 173 36
SAA 3 no. 11:1‒3 145 SAA 10 219, 309, 352 445
SAA 3 no. 13 347, 351, 353, 395 SAA 10 294 36
SAA 3 no. 34:54‒55 418 SAA 10 380 3′‒4′ 456
SAA 3 no. 37 423, 425, 428 SAA 10 nos. 1‒38 396
SAA 3 no. 37: 3′‒4′ 424 SAA 10 no. 6:6 ff. 355, 419
SAA 3 no. 37: 16′‒17′ 424 SAA 10 no. 29:2.2‒3 457
SAA 3 no. 37: 18′ 415, 424 SAA 10 no. 109 451
SAA 3 no. 37: 20′‒22′ 425 SAA 10 no. 174: 7‒9 457
SAA 3 no. 37: 24′‒28′ 422 SAA 10 no. 185 343
SAA 3 no. 39 409 SAA 10 nos. 185‒232 52
SAA 3 no. 39 r. 20 ff. 446 SAA 10 no. 207 r. 10‒13 460
552 Indices
SAA 10 no. 244 r. 7‒9 457
SAA 10 no. 254 352
SAA 10 nos. 349, 355 351
SAA 12, nos. 1‒13 171
SAA 12 no. 29 171
SAA 12 no. 35 172
SAA 12 no. 69: 27 ff. 415
SAA 12 no. 71 381
SAA 12 no. 71 rev. 7 229
SAA 12 nos. 72 and 73 381
SAA 12 no. 88 342
SAA 13 no. 18‒24 381
SAA 13 no. 18 381
SAA 20 nos. 1‒6 409
SAA 20 no. 1 r. 18 410
SAA 20 no. 1: r. 20‒24 412
SAA 20 no. 1:12 ff. 400
SAA 20 no. 2 ii 8′ 412
SAA 20 no. 2 iii 35′ 412
SAA 20 no. 3 412
SAA 20 no. 7 439
SAA 20 no. 7 ii 4 426
SAA 20 no. 7 ii 10 388
SAA 20 nos. 9‒11 409
SAA 20 no. 9 iii 400
SAA 20 no. 9 i 23 419
SAA 20 no. 9 iii 400
SAA 20 no. 9:18‒19 400
SAA 20 no. 10 413
SAA 20 no. 10: 11‒24 413
SAA 20 no. 11 r. 4 415
SAA 20 no. 11 r. 5 ff 415
SAA 20 no. 12 409
SAA 20 no. 12 r. 19‒28 420
SAA 20 no. 15 421‒422, 424
SAA 20 no. 15 i 55′ 422
SAA 20 no. 15 i 1′‒5′ 424
SAA 20 no. 15 i 1′‒13′ 424
SAA 20 no. 15 i 46′ 424
SAA 20 no. 15 i 55′‒56′ 422
SAA 20 no. 15 ii 10′‒19′ 425
SAA 20 no. 15 ii 41‒42 400
SAA 20 no. 16 i 1′‒4′ 427
SAA 20 no. 16 rev. iv 8‒34 427
SAA 20 no. 17 I 7‒8 427
SAA 20 no. 17 I 33′ 438
SAA 20 no. 17 II 4 439
SAA 20 no. 19 427
SAA 20 nos. 24‒27 432
SAA 20 no. 33 392
SAA 20 no. 37 394
SAA 20 nos. 38‒47 394
SAA 20 no. 38 394, 396, 403
SAA 20 no. 38 i 39 ff. 402
SAA 20 no. 38 ii 35 400
SAA 20 no. 38 iv 38 400
SAA 20 no. 38 iv 58 400
SAA 20 no. 38 v 30 400
SAA 20 no. 38 v 35‒36 400
SAA 20 no. 38 v 41‒42 400
SAA 20 no. 39 394
SAA 20 nos. 40‒41 394
SAA 20 no. 40 394, 396‒397, 403
SAA 20 no. 40 with dupl. 41 400
SAA 20 no. 40 rev. ii 22′‒254′ 400
SAA 20 no. 40 ii 38′‒41′ 402
SAA 20 no. 40 iv 4‒8 401
SAA 20 no. 40 v 14‒15 400
SAA 20 no. 40 v 21‒23 400
SAA 20 no. 40 v 23′‒24′ 400
SAA 20 no. 40 v 24‒vi 10 396
SAA 20 no. 40 vi 15′ 400
SAA 20 no. 40 vi 15′‒28′ 402
SAA 20 no. 41 394
SAA 20 nos. 42‒44 394
SAA 20 no. 42: I 1 ff 401
SAA 20 no. 46 394
SAA 20 no. 49 396
SAA 20 no. 49:171 396
SAA 20 no. 52 396, 409, 421
SAA 20 no. 52 rev. ii 36′ 410
SAA 20 no. 52 iv ‒v 16′ 420
SAA 20 no. 52 r. v 47‒48 421
SAA 20 no. 53 421
SAA 20 no. 53 i 1′‒ii 31′ 420
SAA 20 no. 53 i 16′‒ii 30′ 421
SAA 20 no. 53 ii 28′ 421
SAA 20 no. 54 420
SARI I, 34 336
SRT 6 rev. iii 1‒8//SRT 7 ll. 11‒19 335
STT 43:1 213
Šulgi B, ETCSL 2.4.2.0.2 264
Šulgi B, ETCSL 2.4.2.0.2:259‒269 212
Šulgi B ETCSL t.2.4.2.02: 305‒307 89
Šulgi B: 131‒149 361
Šulgi D ETCSL 2. 4. 2. 04:373‒381 436
 Indices 553

Šurpu ii 182 f. 400 TKN iv (= A rev.) 32‒45 318

Šurpu viii 27 400 TKN iv (= A rev.) 40‒43 316
SVAT 1 416
UET 6/1 84 ii 4 ff. 213
TCL 16 43, 61 131
TCL 3 187 313 VAT 16435 384
TKN “iii” [= A obv.] 24 312 VS 21 21:32 380
TKN “iii” 39 = iv [=A rev.] 39 313
TKN Epic iii 47 313 YOS 10 33 iii 37‒45 368
TKN i = A obv. 25 213 YOS 11 42 131
TKN iv (= A rev.) 32′ f 318 YOS 11 49 131